


The End Should Be A Good One

by bananasandboots



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Exes to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 11:56:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 43,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9548075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bananasandboots/pseuds/bananasandboots
Summary: It doesn't feel like falling in love, the way it had felt the first time around, easy, simple, almost like floating, wrapped up in a whirlwind of touches and kisses, late nights spent laughing breathlessly into each other's skin. This feels broken, complicated, like every move carries the weight of their past. Like the floorboards beneath them could collapse at any moment. This doesn't feel good.Or, the one where Harry loses the love of his life on New Years Eve and finds him again, six months later, ready to open some poorly-stitched wounds.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The Obligatory Breakup Fic.

It's nearly ten o'clock at night and there's not a single star in the sky.

That's the first thing Harry notices as he tilts his head back and downs the rest of his drink. The second is that he can't stop trembling.

His ringed fingers rattle against the side of his glass, his knees lock, his muscles pull too tight to move away from the edge of the balcony, and he feels sick, absolutely on fire with it, burning from the inside out despite the last hours of December air and the fact that he hasn't even got his coat on. It's still hanging inside, tucked away in a room built for a hundred other coats, on the other side of a party attended by a hundred other guests, a hundred other people with a hundred different resolutions and a hundred different wishes for a rapidly approaching New Year.

The only wish Harry has tonight is to just be okay. If he could just stop the supernova from exploding in his chest, from collapsing upon itself and creating a great, sucking black hole within him, he could be fine. And maybe it's a wasted wish, maybe wishes don't work when there aren't any stars to wish upon, but he _needs_ to be okay. He can't keep feeling like this.

The balcony door swings open behind him, the roar of the party tumbling outside, glasses clinking, guests laughing, the bass thudding to the beat of his heart. Harry doesn't have to turn around to know who's looking for him. He's been out here a while now, having slipped out as soon as his phone went off about twenty minutes ago. He should probably head downstairs. His ride will be arriving in a few minutes anyway.

Niall comes up beside him, takes one look at his knuckles, white around the base of his empty glass, at the way he's holding himself like he's about to make the toughest decision of his life, and lets out a quiet sigh.

"He's not coming, is he?"

Harry clutches his glass tighter, peers helplessly down to the street below. "He's sending a car for me," he says, mouth gone dry. "He wants to make sure he can kiss his _fiancé_ at midnight."

"And you're okay with that?" Niall asks, studying him through his fake glasses.

Harry nods, just a slight and silent dip of his head, all of his careful composure held in place by whatever sense of self-preservation he has left.

"Yeah," he says, voice tight. God, he feels so fucking awful. "Liam's just left him on his own, and I can't - I'm not going to force him to abandon his work."

"Why not?" Niall asks, perplexed. When Harry doesn't provide him with an answer, Niall shakes his head and huffs out a disbelieving breath. "For fuck's sake, Harry, it's New Year's Eve and he's your boyfriend," he argues. "You're allowed to set the ground rules every once in a while. You can call him away from his job. You're not-"

"Niall," Harry interrupts quietly. He shuts his eyes and takes a steadying breath, the cold air prickling his lungs. "Just. Don't. Please don't. Not tonight."

He's so tired of this conversation. He's had it in his head a thousand times, had it with Gemma, his mum, a thousand times more with Louis, but it's always the same. When you love someone, when your heart is so consumed with it that it starts to hurt more than it feels good, you know which battles you can and can't win just to keep the other person happy. This is a fight Harry's lost again and again, he'll lose it until it kills him, and maybe _that's_ what his real problem is.

It's just. What else is he supposed to do when the things he loves about Louis, his favorite bits, the pieces that make him the person he is, are all of the same bits that can't stop tearing them apart? They fell in love in a tiny, on-campus recording studio, amidst keyboards and cables, microphones and mixers. They fell in love, and in the eight years since, Louis has worked his arse off as a producer, created a name for himself, heard his songs played on the radio, made Harry so _incredibly_ proud. He thrives when he's in the studio. He puts his soul into each of his tracks, creates melodies out of thin air, just _knows_ when the extra beat of a drum, the slightest change in reverb will completely alter the way a song sounds. It's absolutely intoxicating, watching him work.

But it's a heartbreak, pulling him away from it.

He'll leave - he'll always leave if Harry asks him to with no arguments to be had - but it's like dragging a cat in from outdoors. He'll still love you, enjoy his cuddles and pets and remain by your side until you've had enough of him, but every once in a while, when he doesn't think you're paying attention, you'll catch him staring out the window, pawing at the door, itching to go back out.

Harry's never been one for ultimatums. That's just not who he is.

"I love him," he says into the cold London air. He's not trying to convince anyone of it. He knows it's the truth. "I just don't know if that's enough anymore."

Niall doesn't say anything.

A black car pulls up to the door several stories beneath the balcony, and Harry's phone buzzes once in his back pocket.

"I suppose that's for me," he sighs without checking the alert the driver must have sent. He hopes it's a new bloke behind the wheel tonight, not anyone he's shared a car with before. He's not up for small talk. Every time he opens his mouth, he's afraid his whiskey might come back up.

"You'll be okay?" Niall asks, eyeing him warily.

Harry runs a shaky hand through his long curls, pushes them out of his face.

"Happy New Year," is all he says before pulling away from the balcony's edge. He doesn't wait for a response. He just slips back inside, steals an unopened bottle of champagne, two empty glasses, and heads for the lift.

He doesn't realize he's forgotten his coat until Louis finds him shivering outside the studio, stolen goods in his hands, teeth clattering.

"Hey, come here," Louis murmurs and pries the bottle from between his fingers. He sets them on the abandoned receptionist's desk and wraps Harry up in his arms, rubs fiercely across his back to try and warm him up. "Did George not have the heat up in the car?"

"Dunno," Harry shrugs, burying his face in Louis' neck and holding him tight, maybe too tight. "Wasn't really paying attention."

"To whether or not you were cold?"

Harry kisses the skin above Louis' collar, breathes him in. "I was listening to the countdown on the radio," he lies. It's easier than admitting that all of his thoughts had been focused on _them,_ on the literal fundamentals of their relationship. He can't even tell if he's shivering because he's so cold or because he's so fucking torn-up inside that his body's forgotten how to function.

He squeezes Louis tighter, clutches him to his chest, tries to absorb all the warmth from him that he can, and even then, it still doesn't feel like enough.

"I love you," he says quietly, and it hurts. It actually, honestly hurts how much he loves him.

Louis kisses the side of his head, runs his fingers through the long strands of hair at the back of his neck before he takes a step back, puts a gentle space between them. "Everything all right?" he asks, eyes searching Harry's.

Harry doesn't know so he doesn't say anything. He shrugs and takes Louis' hand when Louis reaches for his fingers, but he doesn't answer the question. "The party was a bit rubbish."

"Yeah?" Louis asks with a quiet, careful laugh. "Tell me about it."

So Harry does. He follows Louis into the production room and makes himself comfortable on the expensive leather couch, kicks off his expensive shoes and curls up in the corner in his expensive, fitted trousers and his matching black button-up. He pops open the bottle of champagne and tells Louis about the shit appetizers and the half-decent DJ, about the view from the balcony and meeting Niall's new girlfriend. He rattles on about the fancy artwork in the toilets, about arriving at the same time as _obnoxious Jack with the Hair_ \- anything to keep his mind off the decision he's afraid he'll make if he keeps his mouth shut and just listens.

"You remember Jack, right?" he asks, not at all concerned that Louis isn't exactly paying attention. He's got one ear covered by a giant set of headphones and he's been clicking away at the computer for the past twenty minutes. That's how this always goes - Louis works and Harry natters, and they both get through the night. It's how they fell for each other back in uni. It's how Louis prefers to get the job done, as odd as that seems. He hates working in complete silence. He jokes that the only reason he keeps Liam around is to fill the empty air.

"Of course I remember Jack," Louis says absently from across the room. "Did he catch you alone? Corner you in the fancy toilets and try to talk stocks with you while you had your knob out?"

"Not in the toilets, no," Harry says and rolls onto his back, blinking up at the ceiling, laughing. "It was in the lift on the way up. He started going on and on about his latest investment in, like, organic golfballs or something, I don't even know. I got out on the wrong floor and took the stairs the rest of the way just to get rid of him."

Louis snorts and pulls his headphones off for a second, just to turn around and catch Harry's eye, to flash an easy smile, fond and sweet. For a moment, the weight in Harry's chest dissolves into something light and bearable. For a moment, he feels like he can breathe again.

"Can I hear what you're working on?" he asks, letting his eyes fall shut and folding his hands atop his stomach. He's already finished his generous glass of champagne and it's made him rather sleepy.

Louis unplugs his headphones and adjusts the volume on the speakers. "I still have to sort out the first verse," he says, clicking around a bit more on his computer. "The bridge is mostly Liam's, and there's something I'm not too sure about in the chorus, but it sounds a lot better than what we had this afternoon."

"I'm sure it sounds fine," Harry insists.

Louis accepts the blind faith without question, presses play and lets the music start up - this gorgeous melody that transfixes Harry at once, fills his ears with swirling strings tucked behind an electric beat. It's fascinating, combines current elements with a few older, outdated sounds that might not make sense on paper, but hearing them all like this, Louis manages to twist them up in a way that just _works._ The bridge builds into the final chorus, and by then Harry basically has it memorized. He listens as it comes to an end. He listens, and then, as usual, they sit in silence for a moment while he tries to digest it all.

"I like it," he decides, because of course he does. Every song of Louis' has its own special place in his heart.

"But?" Louis asks, watching him chew over his thoughts with quiet amusement.

"But..." Harry says softly, "I think you should add some more horns towards the end. If you're going for this kind of sixties, old-fashioned-meets-modern-pop thing, I think they'd work nicely in the last chorus."

"What, here?"

Louis plays the end again, tries to imagine it.

"Yeah, as an echo or something," Harry explains. He hums along where he thinks they should go, little background horns that might tie everything together, make it sound more complete.

"Okay, production expert," Louis allows, smiling as he swivels back around in his chair. "I'll consider adding more horns. Just let me finish the bit I was working on and we'll give it a try."

Harry gives a sleepy nod and rolls onto his side, lets his eyes fall shut as Louis continues to work with his headphones unplugged. He feels lighter than he has all week. And maybe that's the worst part of this all. When they're together, when Harry isn't covered in paint and exhausted from chasing primary kids around all day, when Louis isn't stressed about a deadline or trying to work with an artist whose peak hours start at midnight, things are good between them. Harry can almost forget about everything - the take-aways for one, the silent evenings alone with the telly, the mornings where he finds Louis asleep on their couch, too afraid to slip into their bedroom lest he make too much noise. It's these moments, where it's just the two of them together, that make everything else almost worth it.

Almost. Not quite. Not completely.

In a few days, the school will open again and Harry will go back to work, and this - lying around in a production studio, pulling a laugh from his fiancé, spending time awake with each other - _this_ will not happen for another few months. And it's killing Harry, it's honestly killing him, the thought of going back to missing the person he loves most, even though they live together, even though they share a bed together, even though there's nothing inherently wrong with them as a couple. They just don't have the time to be together, and that's the most heartbreaking fact of it all.

He tries to ignore that growing pit in his stomach, the acid burning in his chest at the thought of their impending return to normalcy, but he can't seem to hold it back tonight. He can't stop it, can't make it go away, can't keep it from expanding even as he lets the sound of Louis' work push him towards unconsciousness.

He's just so tired of feeling like this, of biding his time until things get better. He thinks he might be tired of fighting for them.

"Louis?" he says quietly, blinking at Louis' back from across the room.

Louis hesitates a moment, finishes working on one last bit before he swivels around, regarding Harry with just the slightest edge, like he already knows something's up, something's wrong. He's probably known it just as long as Harry has, but he's been better at hiding it. He distracts himself, doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve, focuses on his work instead.

Harry is the complete opposite. His heart is on his sleeve, and it's splintering, crumbling apart.

"It's almost midnight," he points out, throat dry. "Can we go home?"

"I'm almost finished, baby," Louis tells him. "Another twenty minutes while I change a few more things. Don't worry, you'll still get your kiss at midnight."

Harry feels the last bit of fight leave him.

"Let's go home, Lou," he says again, sitting up and pushing a long strand of hair out of his face. His engagement ring gets tangled at the end, the sight of it breaking something in him.

"Now?" Louis asks, watching Harry stare helplessly at the dark band around his finger. "I just have to adjust the bit near the end. Something about it didn't sound quite right. It'll only take about fifteen minutes, I promise."

"Lou," Harry whispers, begs.

And Louis must hear the desperation in his voice, must notice the way he's fracturing on the spot. He blinks at Harry for a moment, tiny crease forming between his eyebrows, and nods.

"Alright, yeah," he says softly. "Yeah, we can go."

He always leaves when Harry asks him to, but that doesn't make it any easier.

They gather their belongings in silence, Harry's heart beating louder and stronger than any other sound in the room, pounding away in his ears like it knows it's on its last legs, like it isn't quite ready to give up. By the time Louis shuts his equipment off, flicks all the little switches and grabs his coat from the hanger, Harry is convinced Louis can hear it, that it's the loudest sound in the room.

He follows Louis outside, his hands trembling so badly while they walk to the car that the champagne flutes clink between his fingers and rattle into the night. All of London seems to be celebrating, and Harry feels utterly sick to his stomach.

"Still cold?" Louis asks as they settle in the car.

Harry can't find his voice anymore, just shakes his head with a small noise of dissent and leans against the window. He shuts his eyes and forces himself to breathe, to fill his lungs with as much air as he can, even if it hurts, even if he feels like he's going to burst with the pain. _It's for the best_ , he tells himself over and over again as the car carries them home. _You aren't happy, neither of you, not like this. Even if it's good right now, in this moment, he'll be gone again tomorrow and in three days, you'll go back to work, too. You aren't happy. You can't live like this._

He's crying silently by the time they park in front of their house just on the outskirts of London. He's full-on sobbing as the front door swings shut behind them.

"Lou-" he hiccups, and Louis' there in an instant, pulling him into his arms, holding him so close they could pass as one person. Harry _feels_ like they're one person, like he's loosing half of himself.

"I know," Louis whispers, almost like he'd been expecting it all night.

Tears fall onto Harry's neck, tears that haven't come from his own eyes.

"We can't keep doing this to each other," he manages to force out through his shuddering breaths. The words feel so thick he's afraid he might choke on them.

"I know, Harry."

"I love you so much."

"I know," Louis exhales, gripping the back of his shirt. "I love you more than anything."

Harry's heart absolutely breaks in half.

"We aren't happy," he says, and it's the truth. It's the worst fucking truth in the world. "We aren't happy, Lou."

Louis pulls back just enough to kiss him as the next sob wracks through his entire body, a wet and terrible kiss that cuts through Harry's heart and steals a part of him with it.

"I know," Louis says against his mouth, tears staining his cheeks. "Baby, I know."

\---

Losing the love of your life sucks.

It honestly, truly does. The world doesn't change, the places don't change, the weather doesn't change. Everything seems to go on, unbothered and untouched, removed from the tiny, minuscule shifts in the balance of the universe, completely unaware that for two people everything has rearranged itself, the planet has flipped on its axis, reversed gravity, and spun them off.

What doesn't affect the universe feels absolutely _monumental_ to Harry.

For the first time in eight years, he isn't in a relationship. There's no one to go home to, no one to kiss goodnight, no one to hold his hand while he does the food shopping, no one to share his heart with. Where there once was Louis, warm and bright, now there's nothing, just this dark shadow of the only person Harry has ever loved, refusing to fade even as the weeks go on, as the Earth continues to turn, as the calendar rolls over.

The new year starts with a break, starts with a thousand desperate, broken apologies, starts with a goodbye, with Harry sleeping on Gemma's couch for three weeks, all of his belongings packed up in boxes, lining the walls of her cramped, little flat. He goes back to work, drinks more than he should, ignores the worried phone calls from his mum, doesn't hear a word from the boy who stole his heart, and doesn't really expect to.

He spends his birthday getting black-out drunk. He wakes up in a stranger's bed, clothes strewn all over the floor, phone showing one missed call and one new voicemail that he never brings himself to listen to. He calls Niall with his head resting on the stranger's toilet, cries the entire drive back to his new flat, deletes the message.

February melts into March, and March creeps up on April, and the ground starts to thaw, the flowers start to bloom, and Harry tries to get on with his life, he really does.

He buys a rusty old bicycle and a pair of new trainers, finds that constant movement works as the best sort of distraction.

He starts going to the gym more.

He cuts his hair off.

He sketches.

Weekly dinners and trips to the pub become a thing after Niall's girlfriend breaks up with him and moves away. The end of a four-month fling doesn't quite compare to that of an eight-year relationship, but they pretend they're in the same boat for a while, and that's nice. It doesn't really help that Niall's still good mates with Louis, that he mentions meeting up with him from time to time, but it doesn't hurt so much either.

"He's in LA, you know?" Niall lets slip over pizza and beer one Friday night around the end of April. "Been there with Liam for the past month. I'm honestly getting sick of all his beach selfies and sunset posts on Instagram." He glances out the window at the cloudy skies and the raindrops pelting against the glass. "Lucky bastard," he mutters.

Harry finishes off his beer and doesn't say anything. He hasn't touched Instagram since January, since his aunt tagged him in a photo from Christmas, _weeks_ after it had been taken, one of the entire family gathered around the Christmas table, Louis perched on his lap, crinkles near his eyes, Harry's lips on his cheek.

It's just strange, he thinks, strange and sad to spend eight years - _almost a third_ \- of his life knowing everything there is to know about a person - how he cooks his eggs, the exact length of the scar down his stomach, the number of kisses it takes to cover that scar, the way he smells after an early-morning cigarette, smokey, warm, sweet - and then to spend a few months apart and not even know when he's left the fucking country.

He almost calls Louis that night. It isn't the first time he finds his thumb hovering over Louis' name in his phone, fingers trembling, lungs tight and chest aching as he tries to talk himself out of it. Everyone had told him to just give Louis space for a while, let things settle between them, give each other time to heal. It just feels like _too much_ space, now - the entire Atlantic Ocean and all of the States between them, and Harry doesn't know how to break it.

So he doesn't. Because he's not sure what he would even say. He's not sure what it would accomplish. He's not sure it would close the gaping hole in his heart. He's not sure Louis would want him to.

Eventually, it does get easier. Not a whole lot, but bearably.

June brings the craziness that the end of the school year usually does. Harry busies himself with preparing for the annual art show, finishing projects, scrounging for volunteers. It isn't stressful, though, and that's what Harry had wanted all along. It had been killing him, trying to split what little time he had between school and Louis. It had made them miserable. It had torn them apart. It feels good in a twisted sort of way, to not have to deal with that anymore.

"Did you ever consider finding a different job?" one of Gemma's friends asks while he's out with his sister for brunch one weekend. "You know, one with later hours so you and Louis could be home at the same time?"

"There aren't many night jobs for art teachers." Harry shrugs, staring down at his half-eaten eggs Benedict. "Not unless I want to try freelance." Which he doesn't. He wouldn't be able to make a living out of that. "It doesn't really matter much now, anyway."

"You don't think Louis would ever want to try again?" Gemma asks.

Harry doesn't want to get any hopes up. "I haven't heard from him since January."

"Have you thought of doing something like art therapy?" Vicki offers. "It's kind of similar to teaching in a sense, just not necessarily with children. You could probably choose your own hours, maybe work evenings instead?"

"I think you need psychology courses for something like that," Gemma says. She takes a sip of her bloody Mary and peers over the top of her glass at Harry.

"I don't know," Harry hesitates. "I mean, I really like working at the school. I'm not really looking for another big change in my life right now."

"But you could look into it?" Gemma tries, gently bumping his knee under the table. "It couldn't hurt."

Harry sighs, runs his fingers through his short, bristly hair. "I guess," he says just to appease them.

He doesn't think much about it for the rest of the day, doesn't want to, not when going through a career change won't guarantee bringing Louis back to him, not in the slightest. For all he knows, Louis could be seeing someone in California by now, shacked up with them in a beach house, quickly falling in love to the sound of the ocean. For all he knows, Louis is doing just fine without him. He'd probably prefer to never hear from him again.

Still, he ends up researching art therapy later that evening as he's sat alone in his crappy, dark flat. He buys two basic psychology textbooks online, just in case, just to see what all the fuss is about, and they sit untouched on his coffee table for three weeks.

There's really no point in reading them and continuing this farce of interest. With Louis halfway across the world, it's just too difficult to imagine a life where this fixes things, where Louis agrees to a second chance, where Harry leaves his job, takes night courses, spends mornings and afternoons with his fiancé, his _husband_ , where he starts a new career and everything is good and different and no one goes to bed with a broken heart ever again.

He almost returns the books, almost laughs at his stupid, indulgent, five-second fantasy, wishing he could erase the hopeless idea from his head and then erase much more than that, erase and erase until so much is gone he can't even remember the reason he's still so sad these days.

He's fine for a bit.

And then Louis comes back.

\---

It's just after one in the morning when Harry wakes to a pounding on his door.

He doesn't move at first, buried too deep in the cushions of his couch, too warm, too groggy, too unwilling to escape the secure confines of the knit blanket pulled over his shoulders. It's comfortable where he is. He doesn't want to move, not even to grab the remote from right in front of his face and shut off the long-forgotten television.

But then there's another knock and the filtered sound of a muffled voice through the door, and he knows he should probably get up and find out who's looking for him at this hour of the night, but it takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot of self-convincing.

"I'm coming," he grumbles as he pushes off the couch and shuffles across the room in his socks and joggers, oversized hoodie keeping him warm. He adjusts the beanie over his head and covers the tips of his ears, pretends he hasn't heard Niall take the piss out of him for wearing it a thousand times since the weather started growing warmer. He isn't awake enough to care. He isn't awake enough to worry about the drool on the corner of his mouth or the indents from his pillow along the side of his cheek. He isn't even awake enough to look through the bloody peep-hole, either. He just flicks open the lock and pulls open the door, lets his heart fall through all five of the floors below him when he sees who's on the other side.

"Louis?" he exhales, utterly confused.

He's been drinking, that much is certain if the smell of alcohol radiating from every inch of his body is anything to go by. He's barely-conscious, hanging off the door frame, sweat dripping down the hollows of his cheeks, eyes closed where his head rests against the wood.

"What's going on?" Harry asks slowly, the worry starting to seep into his lungs. It isn't much more than a groggy whisper ripped from his throat, but somehow, pissed out of his mind as he is, Louis seems to hear it. He picks his head off the frame and frowns at Harry with unfocused, glazed-over eyes, and _never_ in any scenario that Harry had imagined over the past six months was _this_ the way he thought they'd be reunited again.

"Lou, what's going on?" he asks again, frozen in the doorway.

Louis shakes his head, turns his face back into the wood like he's trying to hide it.

"'M so drunk, H," he slurs, fingers gripping at the wall for support. "Don't wanna be home alone."

"It's the middle of the night, Lou," Harry tells him quietly, hands shaking where they're stuffed in the deep pockets of his hoodie. He doesn't know what he's doing. "You shouldn't be here. How did you even know where to find me?"

"Liam," Louis mumbles. "I needed to see you."

Harry's heart lurches. "You needed to see me?" he asks. "Shouldn't you still be in LA?"

"Got home last night."

He rolls his face in Harry's direction, and it takes a dangerous amount of time for his eyes to focus properly, but when they do, they settle on Harry's and it's like the entire weight of the past half a year collapses right on top of them. Harry doesn't say anything. The hole in his chest feels as fresh as ever, torn open because of some stupid alcohol and poor judgement, and now they're both here. Now he's supposed to pretend it doesn't still hurt, pretend he's alright with this, pretend it isn't a terrible idea to reach out and touch Louis' arm when they haven't spoken to each other in so long.

"'M sorry," Louis apologizes over the sound of the blood pounding in Harry's ears. He ducks his head and leans into Harry's touch, takes a shuddering breath. "I drank - a lot," he hiccups. "I need - I need - Fuck..." He tries to step away from the wall, but ends up nearly slumping down it instead. "I'm so fucking dizzy."

"You're alright, Lou," Harry promises, and despite every bone in his body telling him not to, he lets go of Louis' arm to gently pry him away from the doorframe and pull him against his side.

He's too warm.

Harry can feel the heat burning off his skin even through the thick fabric of his hoodie. He's completely overheated, his body trying desperately to set fire to the alcohol swimming in his veins. When everyone's safe and sober again, Harry might very well have someone's head for this, for not looking after Louis, for allowing the night to progress this far.

"Come on, love," he murmurs weakly against the top of Louis' head, hating the way it comes so naturally after all of this time, hating how two minutes has already unraveled six months of wasted effort to forget this feeling.

"Where're we going?" Louis mumbles, barely holding onto consciousness. His mouth puffs a sticky breath against the side of Harry's neck, and it's almost too much. It is too much.

"Inside," Harry says. "Before you wake my neighbors."

Louis wraps his arms around Harry's waist, but he doesn't say anything, and Harry is forever grateful when he doesn't put up a fight either, just lets himself be guided in through the doorway and into the bedroom without making a fuss.

All Harry needs to do is get Louis undressed, get him under the covers, maybe persuade him to drink some water, and leave a bin by the side of the bed. That's all he needs to do.

"You smell terrible," he says with a small laugh because it's easier than admitting just how good it feels to have him in his arms again.

Louis clings to the fabric of his hoodie, doesn't seem to want to let go as Harry tries to lower him onto the bed. "You smell like a dream I once had."

"You can't smell things in dreams," Harry argues. He nudges Louis off of him until he's lying back against the mattress, head centered between the pillows like some awful, tempting nightmare. "This alright?" he asks, swallowing the lump in his throat.

Louis nods, eyes shutting with resignation as his fingers find the hem of his vest and start dragging it up.

Harry leaves him to it, goes to fetch that glass of water and an empty waste bin to set on the floor.

When he comes back, Louis is on his side of the bed, head still in his shirt, trousers unbuttoned, both shoes kicked off the edge of the bed. Limbs moving of their own accord, Harry helps him get the rest taken care of, works his skin-tight trousers down his legs, lifts his shirt over his sweaty head, places them neatly in a pile with his shoes.

"I don't feel well," Louis mumbles then, tucking his face into Harry's pillow, letting his eyes fall shut again.

Harry carefully sits down in the bit of space left between his body and the edge of the bed.

"I know you don't," he says as he pushes Louis' hair off his forehead. His skin burns under his touch, hot against his cold fingertips. He needs Louis to sit up and try to drink some water before he passes out, but he's afraid any serious movement, too quick or too much, might upset his stomach and have him vomiting all over the bed.

"You alright, Lou?" he asks softly, not exactly expecting an answer. He trails a fingernail down the side of Louis' bare arm, traces some of the tattoos, pretends it doesn't sting as much as it does when he finds two he doesn't recognize.

Louis snuffles a little in response, his skin golden brown under Harry's fingers, kissed by the California sun. Harry wants nothing more than to kiss it himself, slip into bed behind Louis, fall asleep with him and make everything awful go away. But he can't. He lost that privilege months ago. He can't just wish it all better in one night.

Heart aching again, he settles for squeezing Louis' tired fingers, those invisible strings tugging at his insides and making it difficult to force himself away. For a moment, Louis squeezes back, holds Harry's hand for just a few beats of his heart. His lips twitch like he's trying to say something, but nothing comes out, not until Harry makes himself let go and stand up, not until he makes it halfway across the room feeling more fucking miserable about his life choices than he has in weeks.

It comes out as a mumble, slurred into the fabric of the pillow, but he hears it all the same, clear as anything else.

"Miss you," is all Louis says.

Harry ducks his head and flicks the light off, tries not to let it break him as much as it does.

\---

The next time he wakes up, it's to the sound of his armchair squealing as the weight of a body drops into it across the living room. In his lucid state, he shifts, grumbling nonsensically into the couch cushions, mouth dry, nose stuffy, vision blurred when he finally makes a weak attempt to open his eyes.

"Go back to sleep, H."

Louis' sitting there, or rather, _lying_ there with his head propped up on one armrest, his knees pulled to his chest, bare feet resting on the other armrest. He isn't even looking at Harry. His eyes are stuck on the ceiling, blinking slowly, exhausted.

"How are you awake right now?" Harry mumbles, rubbing his own eyes. "It's, like, not even morning yet."

"It's half-seven," Louis says flatly. He sounds awful, voice all raspy, getting caught in his throat, rough like sandpaper. "I just threw up in your toilet," he mutters. "Hope that's okay."

"Better in the toilet than on my duvet," Harry decides.

"If I had known it was your duvet, I wouldn't have thrown up at all."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Louis shrugs, squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head just a fraction. "Nothing, H. Just didn't know where I was." He sighs and scrubs both hands down his face. "It's nice to see you," he adds quietly, twisting his neck to meet Harry's bleary gaze. "I'm a little sad you cut your hair, but other than that, it's nice to, like, know you're alive."

Heart making its way into his throat, Harry self-consciously reaches for his hair.

"I donated it," he says, ruffling the longer parts. "Had it plaited and shipped off to charity one afternoon. It's been like this for a few months now."

"A few months?" Louis repeats, voice so soft it almost comes out as a whisper. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

He isn't talking about the hair anymore. Harry knows that. He just isn't sure how to respond.

"I, um. Yeah, Lou," he says and drags his blanket back up, over his shoulder. "I thought, like... I dunno. I just thought we needed to give each other some space. Just for a bit."

"And by 'a bit,' you mean six months?"

"However long either of us needs," Harry replies. "Or needed. I mean... I don't know. Do you still need space?"

Louis blinks slowly, dark circles under his eyes, matted hair stuck to his forehead with either water or sweat. "Whether I need it or not, I'm still here," he says tiredly. "My drunk arse still managed to find its way into your flat last night despite either of our best intentions. Sorry if that's not what you want. Or need," he adds with a sigh and goes back to staring at the ceiling.

He looks gorgeous, even with the hangover, the wild, week-old scruff, the oversized - _Harry's_ \- oversized joggers and t-shirt falling off his tanned arms and legs. The glow of the sun hits him just right, beaming in through the distant window and setting him ablaze. If Harry could sketch him now, he would. If he could capture those angles, the shadows and highlights, the dips and curves, and immortalize them forever in his notebook, he _would_. But he hasn't sketched Louis in years, and he isn't about to start again now.

He misses him. _So much._ And he's still so helplessly in love.

"I think I might still need space," he murmurs, pulling on the loose thread at the corner of his blanket. "I'm just not sure I want it enough to let you go again. Sorry if that's not what you want."

"I get it," Louis tells him. "It sucks not having you around, even just as someone to talk to."

"Yeah," Harry agrees. If he's willing to admit anything, it's that. "How are you feeling?"

Louis grimaces, wry and crooked, bordering on painful. "Fucking _dreadful,"_ he says with a miserable laugh. "It's like someone's cut open my skull and tapped on my brain with a hammer for eight hours straight. I can't remember anything about last night."

"Not even the lap dance?" Harry asks.

Louis' eyes go comically wide and Harry snorts quietly into the pillow.

"I'm joking," he says. "I'm joking. Relax, you were fine."

"I take back what I said about missing you," Louis mutters. "Six months was easy. A real piece of cake. Let's make it another fucking year."

"For someone with such a shit hangover, you really do talk a lot," Harry points out, and as soon as he says it, he realizes what that must mean. Louis' _nervous._ They've known each other since their uni days, almost nine long years, and now, lounging around in Harry's new flat, in Harry's old clothes, after drunkenly stumbling up to his door at one in the morning, Louis is _nervous_.

"Is this weird?" Louis asks, folding his hands atop his chest and heaving a great sigh.

"What? Lying around in my living room when we haven't spoken to each other in months?" He hears Louis hum softly in acknowledgement. "It's a little weird, yeah," Harry decides.

"Yeah, it is, isn't it?" Louis agrees. "If you want me to leave, I'll go, but you'll have to roll me off this chair and onto the street first. I'm not sure I'll be able to move ever again."

"Did you drink any water?"

"Not enough."

"Would it make this even weirder if I cooked you some breakfast?"

"Probably," Louis says. He pauses to dig his phone out of his front pocket, squinting against the bright screen, brows furrowing, lips pursed as he starts typing out a message.

It's a look Harry knows all too well. He tries not to let it bother him and get under his skin. If they aren't together, it shouldn't matter anymore.

"Already have plans?" he asks, focusing on a bit of dirt beneath his fingernail. He picks it out, looks up in time to see Louis turn his screen off and bury his phone back in his pocket.

"Nope," Louis assures him and drags his fingers through his hair. "Go on and make breakfast, H. I want to hear about everything you've been up to, weird as it is or not."

"My life really isn't that interesting, Lou."

"Well, mine is," Louis insists, "and I can't tell you about LA unless I let you go on about London first." He slides his hands down his face and rubs at his eyes some more. "Just. If you've met anyone or you're, like, seeing someone, try to leave those bits out for now. I don't think I'm ready to hear about that just yet."

Harry nods, stomach flipping at the thought, air going cold in his lungs. "Likewise," he says, quietly. "Though you should know, there isn't anyone. I'm not seeing anyone."

"Okay," Louis says, voice thin. "Me neither."

Harry doesn't have much of a right to be relieved by that, but he still is.

\---

They don't actually talk as much as Louis had wanted them to, but, given the state of his hangover, it's easy to understand. Louis manages to drag his arse over to the breakfast bar while Harry makes eggs and toast, and he pretends to listen as Harry tries to summarize the past six months in a way that sounds remotely interesting. Louis isn't feeling the greatest, Harry can tell, even after the giant glass of water and the two paracetamol he forces down. He's never been good with a hangover, has always preferred to remain comatose in bed all day. This morning shouldn't be any different, and yet, here Louis is.

"Lou, really, if you want me to drive you home, I will," Harry tells him, watching Louis' face turn paler and greener with each bite he takes. "You don't have to do this for me."

"I'm fine," Louis insists, his throat bobbing as he forces himself to swallow. "Keep talking about the little ones. I miss hearing about those monsters."

"They aren't monsters," Harry sighs and ducks his head to take a sip of his tea. He hasn't showered yet, probably has huge bags under his eyes and looks like shit, but he's alright with that. He's alright if Louis is alright. "Okay," he says, setting his cup down. "Everything's kind of crazy at the moment with the art show next week."

"That's next week already?"

"It's almost the end of the school year," Harry reminds him as he picks at his food. Six months of school, six months without Louis, six months that seem to have passed like both a lifetime and the blink of an eye.

"Yeah, this is definitely weird," Louis comments in the silence as he pulls his leg onto the barstool and hugs his knee to his chest.

"It's not so bad," Harry tries, but it falls flat, easing absolutely none of the tension. "Rumor has it, this is completely normal."

"Not for us, it isn't." Louis shakes his head.

"You're just super hungover and this was all very unexpected."

"I don't want to throw up," Louis mutters. He looks like he might.

Harry sighs and gives in to the instincts he's been fighting, places a gentle hand over the center of Louis' back. "You're okay," he says, scratching lightly down his spine. "You're not going to throw up."

"Tell me more about the art show," Louis insists as he exhales slowly, ribcage contracting with it under Harry's touch.

"It's space themed," Harry offers, "which you already know." _Because we came up with it together, watching that ridiculous documentary about aliens last summer._ "The kids are excited. They ask about you sometimes."

"The little ones?" Louis asks, somewhat surprised. They were always _the little ones_ to him. After coming in to help for two days last October, two sad attempts at filling another gap in their relationship, all of the kids seemed to have fallen in love with him.

"They wanted to know if you were going to be at the show," Harry says. "Somehow they were under the impression that you'd promised."

He digs his thumb into a hole on the inside of his sleeve and waits for Louis to tell him he's wrong, he's busy, that he never promised anything like that. It's quiet between them for a moment as Louis pushes his eggs around his plate.

"What night is the art show?" he asks eventually.

"Thursday," Harry answers, wondering if he should have even mentioned it. "You don't actually have to be there, Lou, I wasn't bringing it up because I was expecting to see you or anything. I just thought, like, you'd want to know. That the little ones were thinking of you."

"The little ones?" Louis asks again, quiet this time.

Harry blows out a low breath, can't bring himself to look Louis in the eye. "Yeah," he says just as softly. "The little ones."

Louis hums his acknowledgement, and then, before the silence can grow too thick, his phone bursts to life next to his glass of water, startling them both. As Louis goes to grab it, Harry catches Liam's name at the top of the screen.

"Go ahead," he says when Louis hesitates to answer. "He's probably just worried about you after last night."

Louis shakes his head, reluctant. "It's not that," he mutters.

"Just answer it, Lou."

Louis throws him one last, desperate look before he brings the phone to his ear.

"Hey," he answers, staring down at his foot on the edge of the stool. "Did you not get my text?"

Harry just about makes out Liam's frustrated response of, "You can't just bail on a meeting because you're hungover, Louis," before he excuses himself to go use the toilet. He doesn't want to hear much more than that. He's heard it all before.

It's a quick conversation, over by the time Harry finishes washing up. When he comes back out, only minutes later, Louis' sat at the foot of his bed, slipping on his trainers, his own clothes thrown back on. It shouldn't bother Harry as much as it does, but he's seen this sight before, too.

"I'm supposed to meet someone for dinner and drinks Thursday," Louis says flatly, voice straining to remain even as he adjusts the heel of his shoe. Harry's face must do something funny because Louis takes one look at him and adds with nervous haste, "not- not like a date. It's not a date. It's just with a songwriter Liam wants to work with."

"Okay," Harry murmurs, still standing in the ensuite doorway, neither of them willing to address the fact that Louis is obviously on his way out. "So you won't be at the art show."

"I want to be there," Louis says. "I'll try to be there."

And all of this feels so familiar. Harry knows how this ends. He's known it for the past two years - New Year's Eve parties, trips up to Cheshire, date nights to the cinema, _fuck_ , even Louis' own marriage proposal - they've all ended the same way no matter how much Louis' wanted to be there, no matter how well-meant his offers had been.

"It starts at five and ends at nine," Harry tells him, just in case this time is any different.

Louis doesn't say anything. It's really all the response Harry needs to not get his hopes up. Some things, however much he'd like them to, won't ever change.

"You should probably head off to your meeting," he says. His throat feels dry again, that elastic band around his lungs squeezing with a bit more force, a sickening reminder of the way he'd felt at the end of their relationship.

"I'm sorry," Louis says, voice small in the cold, empty bedroom. "I tried to get out of it, but Liam-"

"It's fine, Lou," Harry sighs, focusing on a chip in the door jamb instead of the disappointment coursing through his veins. "I wasn't expecting you to drop everything just for me." He's never felt like a priority before, so why should he feel any different now? "Do you need a ride home?"

Louis' shoulders slump. He looks fucking miserable. "No," he says, pushing his fringe from his forehead. "My driver should be here in a few minutes. I'm sorry."

"No need to apologize," Harry shrugs. He's not supposed to feel like this anymore. His disappointment isn't supposed to come back and cripple him. He needs a minute. "I'm just... You can let yourself out, yeah? I'm just going to take a shower while I'm in here." He jabs an awkward thumb over his shoulder, and Louis nods.

"Yeah, sure," he says and pushes to his feet. He checks the time on his phone again, head bent, bottom lip caught between his teeth. "Um. It was nice to see you," he adds, neither of them moving to breach the space between them. "Thanks for, like... taking care of me last night."

Harry doesn't know what to say. He stands there in the doorway, trying to remember that there's a reason he and Louis broke up, and it's because of _this,_ this feeling, right here, right now, of knowing exactly how things are going to turn out while still holding onto that last shred of hope that maybe, just maybe, something might change. Nothing has changed and he shouldn't be surprised.

"I'll see you around, Lou."

He waits until Louis nods and slips wordlessly out of the bedroom before he locks the bathroom door and slides down against it, the familiarity of it all creeping into his lungs and threatening to suffocate him.

\---

Less than a week later, two hundred ceramic aliens line the tables along the edges of the gymnasium, tables draped in black fabric, dotted with stars and glitter, twinkling under the fairy lights set along the walls. Two hundred solar systems hang from wires stretched above rows of rocket ships and astronaut portraits. Two hundred sketches of make-believe planets stick to the dividers that separate those rows.

An entire year's worth of projects - the hard work, the talent, the brilliance of two hundred primary school students are on display for parents and loved ones to finally see, and Harry can't seem to shake the thought of Louis from his head.

Even as the doors open and the kids and their families come bustling in, he still feels on edge. He's felt it all week, even though he hasn't spoken to Louis since their morning together, and his eyes can't help sweeping the room every few minutes, searching for him even though he knows he isn't going to show. When the kids come bounding his way with their parents in tow, he can't even hold a half-decent conversation with them, can hardly stomach their praises and thanks when his mind is running elsewhere, struggling to keep up.

And it's not even about Louis not being there, about him making promises he doesn't intend to keep, saying things like _I'll try_ when Harry knows Louis knows, deep down, that there's no trying to be had. It's not about Louis not being there because he _is_ there. He's in the styrofoam planets that he and Harry had bought together, the ones they'd had so much trouble stuffing into the boot of his car that a quarter of them cracked and had to be replaced. He's in the aliens, the lumpy, bug-eyed aliens that were once just blobs of clay that needed to be cut and separated, Louis' fingers slimy and gray, growing crusty and hardening by the end of the afternoon. He's in some of the rocket designs, the mustache and pair of glasses he'd added to Harry's astronaut. He's in the glitter thrown haphazardly over the black cloths, the glitter that had ended up in Harry's hair as they'd worked, that Harry had picked out of the dips and curves of his body while trying to kiss Louis in the shower later that night.

He's everywhere and in everything, even when he's not supposed to be. And that makes it hard for Harry to breathe. Leave it to Louis to come back into his life for a few hours and fuck up all of the progress he'd made.

"You okay, hun?" a gentle voice asks, sneaking to his side as soon as he's free from another chatty parent, about two hours into the show.

Harry leans against the bare stretch of wall behind him and turns to face his closest coworker, Katie. She's been snooping around since the art show started, checking out the crazy projects Harry'd managed to orchestrate over the past year. Her third year classroom is right across the corridor from his, and she's probably his favorite person there tonight.

"This is the biggest night of my school year," he says helplessly, "and I can't stop thinking about my bloody ex-fiancé. What is _wrong_ with me?"

He slumps further along the wall, frustration acting like gravity and pulling him down.

Katie makes a noise of sympathy and slips an arm around his waist, tugging him back up, the giant, sparkling engagement ring on her finger catching his attention and churning his stomach.

"There's nothing wrong with you," she says, though Harry would very much beg to differ. "Art and Louis are both massively important to you. It's not rocket science that you're going to think about him at a moment like this."

"But he's not even _here."_

"Was he meant to be?" Katie asks like she already knows the answer. And she does. Louis was never supposed to be here. Harry just wishes he was. "What's with this pouty face tonight?" she says, reaching up to pinch his cheeks. "You see Louis for the first time in months and you're already pulling out your stitches? I thought we patched your heart up for good."

"Hardly," Harry scoffs and pauses to plaster on a weak smile as one of his first years waves at him from across the way. "What does it say about me if all it took to unravel months of dealing with this bullshit was my ex showing up drunk on my doorstep and giving me five seconds of his time?"

They hadn't even been a good five seconds. Maybe the idea of them had been nice, but looking back, it had just been, well... _weird._ Stilted, forced, probably inhibited by Louis' hangover, nothing lost and nothing gained. The only thing their encounter had proven was that staying together would have kept them miserable. Louis would have continued to leave him on weekends, on mornings, days they could have spent together. He would have continued to run away in favor of the studio.

That ghost of a feeling Harry had felt those few days ago had been enough to remind him why they had needed the split in the first place.

And yet.

"One step forward, two steps back," Katie sighs, waving back to the student who had waved first.

"Biggest cliché ever," Harry mutters.

"It's only a cliché because it's so often the truth. Have you spoken to him since?"

Harry shakes his head and shoves his hands in his pockets. "I don't know what I would even say."

"It doesn't have to be anything special," Katie says. "What is it you want from him? Do you want to be friends? Do you want to close the space a little? Do you want to try getting back together?"

"I want to not feel like this anymore," Harry answers, because feeling like he's been cut open and left bleeding all on his own for half a year isn't something he wants to feel forever. Ideally, he would like to reach a point where thinking of Louis, talking about Louis, talking _to_ Louis doesn't leave him aching inside.

"Would friends be okay?" Katie offers. "Acquaintances? I mean, you couldn't have been with him for all those years just for the sex. You had to have had some common ground, something that made you want to spend time with him."

"You make it sound so simple," Harry mutters, watching one of his students climb onto her father's shoulders to point out her solar system high above their heads. "I can't just ignore whatever feelings I still have... but I don't know if I can lose him again like that."

"Remind me why you broke up?"

"Because we had such conflicting work schedules that it was becoming a chore to spend time with him," Harry explains for what feels like the millionth time.

"And neither of you wanted to force the other to make any changes at work, and neither of you wanted to change anything for yourselves," Katie finishes for him. "Right. Makes a lot of sense."

"You know it _did,"_ Harry sighs. He leans into Katie's side and slouches to drop his head on her shoulder. "You _know_ how stressed I was getting about not seeing him. You know how sad we both were about it. There was nothing we could have done that wouldn't have made one of us resent the other. We talked about it. I explained it all to him."

"So if nothing has changed and nothing will, it should be easy to accept that and just move on.".

Harry refutes that by dropping more of his weight onto her shoulder and causing both of them to stumble along the wall.

"Christ, Styles," Katie swears, shoving him off. "Get your shit together. If you don't want to be friends or anything less, then something has got to give. If you're not willing to change anything and, _clearly,_ Louis isn't, then fucking get over your feelings for him and be his friend."

"You know..." Harry sighs, crossing his arms and pretending to think quite hard. "I don't _have_ to be at your wedding in a few weeks. I don't _have_ to give you that fancy juicer you and Dan wanted."

"Get over yourself," Katie snorts and pushes him away, one hand flat on his bicep.

"I wish Niall were here. Niall loves me."

"Excuse me while I go call the wedding planner and have her seat you between Louis and Liam."

"You wouldn't," Harry challenges, but even as he says it, the reminder that he's going to have to be at a wedding in the near future with the man he was supposed to have his own wedding with has his heart feeling heavy all over again.

Katie gives in, her eyes finding his face under the twinkling fairy lights and going soft around the edges.

"You still love him quite a bit," she says, over the murmur and bustle of the kids and the crowd.

It's not a question. Harry doesn't think it ever will be.

Still, he can't find the right words to answer. He knows he shouldn't, that part of the healing process must surely involve moving on, letting go of the things he'll never have and the feelings that sit inside of him, still festering, still consuming everything he has. He knows that. But that doesn't make any of this easier.

"If you want to step out for a minute and get some air, I can distract the parents for you." Katie nods towards the exit, squeezing his hand.

Harry takes a deep breath, feels it settle in his lungs without doing anything to blow away the crushing pressure that's always in his chest.

He just needs a moment. Five minutes to himself to get his head screwed on straight and to stomp out the disappointment still prickling at his skin. This is his show, his hard work as a teacher. He should be proud of getting to this point. He should be celebrating. He shouldn't be thinking about Louis.

"I'll be right back," he promises before giving Katie a one-armed hug and heading straight for the nearest set of doors.

Only, when he rounds the corner and nearly walks into someone, he finds he isn't the only one searching for a place to sit and think. Louis' there, too.

Louis, who should be at an important dinner with a potential client. Louis, who couldn't give a straight answer when Harry had asked about the art show in the first place. Louis, who'd spent the past year and a half trying to balance work with his personal life, who'd failed miserably almost every single time, who couldn't even meet Harry on New Year's Eve to keep their relationship from crumbling to pieces.

Somehow, after all of that, after they've stopped being engaged, stopped keeping in contact, stopped being _friends,_ Louis has managed to make it to this one important night in Harry's life, and _that,_ out of all the thoughts Harry's had since Louis showed up at his flat, is the one that inexplicably makes him want to cry the most.

He stops dead in his tracks, emotion clogging all of his airways and making it impossible to say anything.

"Hi," Louis exhales first, a little startled to have almost run into him. When Harry doesn't respond right away, Louis' eyes start to dart around the corridor, hesitant and unsure, like he doesn't know exactly what he's doing here yet. Which is fine. Harry doesn't know what he's doing here either.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, because this isn't how things are supposed to go. Not in the world he's used to, not with the way he knows Louis is.

Louis' shoulders drop, his eyes settle on their feet, a meter apart.

"You, um. You asked me to be here," he says plainly, lips forming a thin line. "Some of the little ones saw me at the entrance and caught me off guard. I just needed a minute away from that. I didn't, like, expect any of it."

Harry nods, can't really manage much else.

"But, like," he tries, throat sticking just a little. "You said you were busy," he reminds Louis. "You said you were supposed to have dinner with someone. Why are you here? Why aren't you out with them?"

"Because I'm trying this thing," Louis tells him, "where I do my best to not disappoint everyone I've ever cared about, and I guess you're the first person on that list."

"But we've barely spoken in months," Harry says, as if that should make any difference, as if Louis might care any less about him after that amount of time.

Louis just gives a little shrug, the corner of his mouth tugging up in a sad sort of smile.

"That doesn't mean you're not still important to me," he says.

The words ring around in Harry's busy head for a moment, resonate with his own sentiments, his own thoughts, like they're still on the same wave length. He knows what Louis means. He gets it. Because even now, there's no one else he'd rather be in this empty corridor with, trying to dig himself out of the dark holes of his thoughts with, than the person standing in front of him.

He wants to hug Louis. He wants to sink into the familiar warmth of his arms and murmur tired _thank you_ s into the dip of his neck. He could use some sleep. He still feels a bit like he might cry. His heart seems to have swollen within his chest, putting pressure on his lungs. He doesn't know how to be acquaintances.

"Is this okay?" Louis asks, watching him carefully, the conflict probably clear on his face. "I can go if this is upsetting you. If you don't want me to be here, I'll leave."

Harry shakes his head. There's still that space between them that hasn't been breached yet, but he isn't sure how to get past it.

"No, no, I want you here," he insists, wondering if any of this is normal, if Katie would say it is. "I do. I promise."

Louis arches an eyebrow. "Then why do you look like you might cry?"

With a watery laugh, Harry sniffles once and shakes his head again.

"I won't," he says. "I won't. I'm just... a little emotional. You surprised me. I didn't expect you to actually show up."

"I told you I would try," Louis reminds him.

Harry just shrugs. "Yeah, well... I might have heard that one before."

He doesn't mean for it to sting, but he does notice the way Louis flinches all the same. It's... whatever. It's in the past. They can't change what was done, they can only move on from it. And this, Louis keeping his word, not prioritizing his job, is a nice step in the right direction.

 _Not that there is a right direction,_ Harry reminds himself as he watches Louis try to keep his head up, watches his eyes flicker down to the floor again, his lip caught between his teeth. He doesn't know where this is headed or what the final destination will be. Friends would be nice. They could try being friends.

"You just got here?" he asks in an attempt to move them back to the gymnasium, to distractions and other people, to the kids.

Louis appears grateful for the change in subject. "Yeah, I probably shouldn't be wandering the school, actually," he says. "You're sure the little ones want to see me?"

"The little ones?" Harry asks, because it's always more than them.

Louis nods, turning as he slowly starts meandering back to the art show, Harry falling into an easy step beside him.

"Yeah, the little ones," he says, bumping Harry's shoulder, not entirely on accident.

Harry almost catches the hint of a smile reaching the corner of Louis' mouth when he glances sideways at him.

"I'm sure the little ones want to see you," he says. "They were really hoping you'd be here."

"That's good," Louis says. "I've missed them."

\---

Two hours later, Harry finds himself lying flat on the gymnasium floor, blinking up at the fairy lights, completely exhausted from all of the build-up and hype and talking to parents and children all night. And Louis.

"Nice show, knob head."

Harry peers to the side to find Katie towering over him, coat and keys in hand, awful smirk on her face.

"Go home, Katie," he mutters, shutting his eyes and pretending she isn't there. To his other side, he hears Louis let out a quiet laugh. "What are you giggling about, Tomlinson?" he asks.

"Nothing, knob head," Louis says. "I'm just happy to be here."

It's the first time Harry's had a second to stop and think since Louis' arrived, but yeah, _happy_ seems like a nice way to describe the way he's feeling at the moment. Tired and worn-out, glad that his big night is over and done with, but also happy. He's happy Louis is there.

"Thanks for supporting my ridiculous endeavors," he says, carding his fingers lazily through his hair. "Remind me not to do so many projects next year."

"Just think - tomorrow we get to take all of these mobiles down again," Katie says with mock enthusiasm. "Are you sure you don't want to help, Louis? Spend your morning climbing up and down ladders, running all these planets back up to Harry's classroom."

"It'll be _fun,"_ Harry sing-songs, nudging Louis' foot with his elbow. He glances up to see him fighting a grin, doing a poor job of it if the crinkles near his eyes are anything to go by.

"As much as I'd love to-"

"No need for sarcasm, Tomlinson."

Louis sighs and flips Katie off, pinches Harry's shoulder for laughing at her interruption. "As much as I would love to," he tries again, "I promised Liam I'd be in the studio early tomorrow. He threatened to hunt me down and lock me in there if I so much as thought about skiving off again, so if you don't hear from me for a few days, send help."

He looks to Harry for another laugh, but Harry can't offer much more than a weak smile, having tuned out at the mention of the studio. All the studio does these days is remind him of their previous morning together, of all the mornings and evenings and afternoons prior to that, where he knew Louis would rather be sat in front of his producing equipment than spend another hour with him. The studio used to remind him of falling - fast and hard and in love. Now it just turns his stomach.

"I'll tell Dan to give you a break for being such a good friend tonight," Katie offers when she realizes Harry isn't going to say anything.

Louis doesn't say anything either, not until Harry peers wordlessly over at him and catches the funny look on his face. Harry lifts a questioning eyebrow, trying to get a response out of him, but Louis just shrugs, forces a fake smile.

"It's the least I deserve," he jokes, though there's a bit of an edge to his voice.

Harry huffs out a breath and sits up. "I think what we all deserve," he says, "is to get out of this bloody alien festival and celebrate the fact that my school year is basically over. Katie, you up for it?"

"Up for getting out of here?" she asks, twirling her keys around her index finger. "Of course I'm up for that, though I'm not celebrating anything with you lot tonight. I've still got to teach in the morning, in case you've managed to forget."

"Fair enough," Harry nods. "All I'm doing tomorrow is cleaning this mess."

"I'm up for it," Louis says. "You want to go grab a cuppa with me?"

It takes Harry far too long to realize he's being serious.

"Oh," he says awkwardly, silence filling the gap as he blinks between Louis and Katie, searching for an explanation. "What, now?"

"You don't have to," Louis starts backtracking immediately. "I just thought since we're both here and would otherwise be sat home alone, we could go out or something? There's that new cafe a few streets over. If you want, we could give it a try?"

It must say something about the state of their relationship prior to the breakup that all Harry can do is stare at him, brows furrowed, lips pursed tight.

"Never mind, it was a stupid idea," Louis says before he can respond. "Forget I even mentioned it."

Harry opens is mouth to argue, but Katie jumps in ahead of him.

"And on that note, I think it's time for me to leave," she declares, doing a fantastic job of highlighting the tension in the air. She hitches her bag back onto her shoulder and gives them each a short wave. "It was nice seeing you, Louis," she says. "And, Styles, I'm proud of you. You did good." She gestures around at all of the art still glowing under the fairy lights.

Harry sighs, trying not to get too mushy about it. "Love you, Katie," he tells her.

"Goodnight, Katie," Louis echoes.

"Be good to each other," Katie warns, and with that, she leaves them alone in the middle of the gymnasium, footsteps fading until the door squeals open and shuts behind her. And then it's just Harry and Louis again, and all of their emotional baggage threatening to break through the careful walls they'd built around their hearts.

"Hey," Harry says, deciding to open the gates just a little. "Let's get coffee."

Louis rolls his eyes. "We're getting tea, you nutter."

"Sorry, I just thought, since you're like a proper LA boy now..."

"I can't believe you just said that," Louis glares at him. "If you think a few months in the States could cure me of my tea addiction, then you can fuck right off."

"Have you always been so dramatic?" Harry asks, but he's grinning again, small and timid, grinning nonetheless. When Louis doesn't answer, Harry starts clambering to his feet with a heavy sigh. "Come on, let's try and get there before they close."

"We could always go to a strip club."

"We could," Harry agrees with a snort, "but I'd rather not."

"Yeah, me neither."

"Good choice."

Harry helps him to his feet and leads him out towards the exit.

\---

They end up ordering their drinks and sipping them together outside the cafe, sat on either end of a small table, the light from the window just bright enough to see each other's faces. It's hot tonight, all of the heat from the summer sun trapped by the humidity, by the clouds that seem to have rolled in for tomorrow's rain. It's too cloudy to see the stars. London's too bright around them, even as it's falling asleep.

"I missed this weather," Louis comments as another couple leaves the cafe behind him. "It's too nice in LA. Too much sun, too dry, too cheery all the time. It made me think I should be doing yoga on the beach every morning when all I wanted was a rainy day so I could not feel obligated to go outside."

"Ugh, beautiful weather every day," Harry feigns his disgust. "How awful that must have been."

He rolls his eyes and Louis kicks his shin under the table, not hard, but enough that Harry's iced coffee goes sloshing around the plastic cup in his hands when he flinches.

"It wasn't awful," Louis corrects. "It was just... different. As much as I wanted to pretend it was home, I always knew that it wasn't."

"Is that why you came back?" Harry asks, chewing on the end of his straw, eyes flickering between the wooden table and Louis' face. "Missed the weather too much?"

Louis shrugs and takes a sip of his tea. "Amongst other things," he says quietly. "I haven't seen the family in a while - since January, maybe - and, like, driving on the right side of the road is pretty overrated. Baseball's shit, too."

 _"Baseball?"_ Harry laughs incredulously, sitting up straighter, on the edge of his chair. "Don't tell me you tried to get into fucking _baseball."_

Louis groans and lets out his own pained laugh, elbows resting on the table, leaning in. "Stop that, it was awful, don't make me talk about it."

"Oh, no. Now I have to hear it," Harry insists with a grin. "You're not getting out of this one. Was it Liam's idea? I bet he dragged you to a game and everything."

"Go Dodgers," Louis mutters with the least enthusiasm a human could possibly muster. "Fuck me. I'd rather watch you and Niall play a full round of golf than sit through three more hours of _America's greatest past time."_

Harry can't help the warm laugh that bubbles out of his chest. He can't help the way his heart flutters, lighter than it's felt in ages. He can't help himself when he sets his own elbows on the table, bridging some of the distance between them.

"I bet you loved it," he says, smirking.

"Loved the beer and the hot dogs, yeah," Louis agrees. He ducks his head and smiles quietly at his tea, swirling it's contents around the cup just a bit. "This is nice," he says without looking up.

Harry plays dumb. "The tea?" he asks. "Yeah, I've heard good things about this place."

"Tea's alright," Louis nods and steps purposely on his toe. "Meant the company, though. It's nice being able to talk to you. I feel like we haven't done this in ages."

"Because we haven't," Harry reminds him.

"No, but even before we, um. Broke up," he says like it's a phrase he hasn't quite gotten used to. "I can't remember the last time we just spent a night out without, like..."

"It being a date?" Harry raises an eyebrow.

"Was going to say 'without sex,'" Louis says, and Harry notices an absurd little flush to his cheeks. As if they haven't been with each other in every which way. As if Harry hasn't seen him at his most vulnerable, in the most intimate sense a thousand times over. "We stopped saving time for nights like these," Louis finishes.

There had just been so little of it at the end. So little time that all Harry had wanted to do whenever he'd managed to get Louis alone was love him until he couldn't forget it, kiss him until their lips turned swollen and raw, press him into the mattress until there was no doubt he'd meant it, that he'd loved him, even if it had hurt to say it.

"I just wanted to be with you when I had the chance," he shrugs quietly.

But Louis is right - this is nice. Chatting with him has always been easy. Without any pressure on his shoulders to impress him, to flirt his way through the night, to rile him up so that the minute they're in the car or the cab or bursting through their front door, their hands and mouths searching out each other's bodies, Harry is left to just enjoy the familiar company of someone who means a great deal to him. He's left to feel like himself again. Like he can breathe.

They chat and laugh and tease and tell stories until the cars stop passing and the street-walkers all find their ways back home. If Louis' phone goes off with a call from work, it's on silent and neither of them know anything about it. They sip their coffee and tea, ice melting in Harry's, nothing but the dregs left at the bottom of Louis', and even then, even with the threat of school looming in the morning and Louis due at the studio, neither of them dare cut the conversation short.

"Sorry to interrupt," a voice says behind Harry halfway through a story about Gemma's cat. Harry stops mid-sentence to find the last of the cafe baristas stepping out through the open door, apron slung over his arm, their eyes meeting.

"We're closing in a few minutes," the guy says.

"What time is it?" Harry asks. They've been there for over an hour but it still doesn't feel too late.

"Nearly eleven," the waiter says, leaning against the doorway. "Time flies when the coffee's good?"

"I pass this place on my way to work every morning," Harry says and absently rattles his empty cup. "Finally had an excuse to stop in after a good recommendation."

He nods his head towards Louis and watches the barista's eyes shift briefly over to him.

"Your friend has good taste," the he says, but his focus stays fixed on Harry.

For the second time that night, hearing Louis referred to as his friend turns something sour in his stomach.

He shrugs and glances back to Louis. "I guess," he says. "You want anything to eat?"

Louis shakes his head. "Nope," he says tersely. "You?"

It's been hours since Harry's had anything substantial in his stomach. Katie had brought him pizza before the art show had opened, but apart from that one slice and his coffee, he hasn't really eaten much at all.

"Um," he says, scratching at the ink on his wrist. "I could use a scone maybe."

"There's a few left over," the barista says before Harry can ask Louis if he wants to split one with him. "Come on inside and I'll ring you up."

Harry checks with Louis, finds him watching the interaction with poorly concealed disinterest.

"Go ahead," Louis nods, pushing his cup to the center of the table. "I'll wait out here."

He's already reaching for his lighter, cigarette slipped between his fingers.

"I'll just be a minute," Harry promises.

He grabs Louis' tea and throws it in with the rubbish as he follows the barista back inside and over to the pastry display. It's a quick decision, two blueberry scones, a quick exchange of cash, and somewhat excessive amounts of polite small talk before Harry thanks him once more and meets up with Louis along the pavement.

Louis blows out a long breath of smoke. "Got what you wanted?" he asks.

Harry grabs the cigarette from between his fingers, drops it to the floor and crushes it with the heel of his boot. "Have a scone," he says and forces one into Louis' empty hand.

"Seriously?" Louis glares at him, fists clenched like he might very well punch him.

Harry breaks off a bit and pops it in his mouth. "What's wrong?"

"Those things cost money!" Louis answers as he bends to pick the barely smoked cigarette off the ground. "I don't need you telling me they're bad for me. I know they're bad for me."

"Okay," Harry nods. He wasn't even going to mention Louis' smoking habits. "I'm not asking about that. I meant what's _wrong?"_

"Why do you think something's wrong?"

"I've known you for almost nine years, Lou. I know when you're off," Harry reminds him with a sigh. "Is it because that guy in there called you my friend?"

He waves behind them, the cafe twenty paces away, lights now off, door locked for the night.

Louis throws his ruined cigarette in the bin. "I don't care what he called me. He doesn't know me."

"Is that what we are, though?" Harry asks. "Are we friends?"

"I don't know," Louis shrugs. "Is that what you want?"

He looks at Harry with of all the quieted uncertainty Harry feels inside himself, that terrible mixture of hope and fear - fear that the answer might be _no,_ fear that anything else has the potential to be just as devastating.

"I don't know," Harry echoes quietly as they amble back towards the school to where their cars are parked. He's not sure what he wants yet. He's not sure what's considered healthy, what's dangerous, what's going to set them off one way or the other. He just wants to do what's right by Louis. "I know I like this," he decides. "I like spending time with you without any pressure to, like, do more."

Louis nods but he doesn't say anything, and Harry doesn't know what to make of that.

"Is that alright?" he asks. And then, stupidly, "For now?"

"For now?" Louis raises a startled eyebrow.

"Until we know we can handle it," Harry is quick to clarify. "Not like, _for now,_ as in we're going to try for more later."

"Right," Louis agrees. "Sorry." He scuffs his heel against the pavement. "For now is alright. One step at a time, yeah? That's how they're doing it these days?"

Harry nods. He's not sure what anyone's doing these days, if there's a step-by-step process to rebuilding a relationship with an ex at all or if this is considered normal, but yeah. One step at a time sounds nice.

\---

The school year ends a week later, and Harry celebrates in the best way he knows these days - by dragging Niall to the pub and having a few beers together.

"What are you planning on doing now?" Niall asks as he leans back in the booth, fingers still wrapped around his third empty glass on the table. "Month and a half off and no holiday to look forwards to. No trip to the south of France. No weekend getaway in Greece."

Harry covers his mouth with his fist as a burp threatens to make its way out. "Don't have anyone to go with," he says once the feeling's passed. "Be a bit lonely drinking cocktails on the beach all by meself. Bit sad."

"I dunno," Niall shrugs. "I think I'd enjoy it for a day or two. No one to bother me, just the sunshine and the waves. Get drunk early and fall into a giant hotel bed at the end of the night. You could get a massage."

"M'not sure I could afford any of that," Harry laughs with a shake of his head. The pub spins a bit, alcohol steadily working its way into his bloodstream.

"Why not?" Niall asks. "You've done it before."

Sure, he has, but he'd gone with Louis on all those adventures. He'd walked all those beaches with Louis, fallen into those hotel beds with his fingers slipping into Louis' jeans, gotten drunk off the tequila he'd sucked from the dips of Louis' collar bones. He wouldn't have been able to do any of that if Louis hadn't paid most of his way there. He's never been ashamed to say it, but primary school art teachers don't earn nearly as much as radio-played music producers. It's why Louis had kept the house and Harry had opted for the tiny flat on the fifth floor of a seven-story building.

"I'll go back to Mullingar with you," he jokingly offers instead of answering. "Ireland has beaches, right?"

Niall snorts and starts getting up to head back to the bar. "You're welcome to sleep in Greg's old bed," he says, "but I think Katie might skin you alive if you miss her wedding."

He's right. Harry knows he is. Still, he pulls his phone out as Niall goes to order their next round, his recently resurrected conversation with Louis the first thing he opens.

_I think I might skip Dan and Katie's wedding. There's a bed in Mullingar with my name on it. Well... mine and Greg's. xx_

It doesn't take long before Louis responds, Harry's phone vibrating just once while he catches the last remaining drops of beer on the back of his tongue.

_Who's Greg?_

"What are you smirking at?" Niall asks as he sets their new glasses down on the table, foam nearly bubbling over the rim.

"Nothing," Harry answers, trying to wipe the smile off his face and doing a horrible job of it. "Just texting."

His phone goes off with a follow-up.

_Oh. Niall's brother? Think that would be a bit rude to Katie and Dan. And me. You can't leave me alone with Liam._

"Have you met someone without telling me?"

"No," Harry frowns and takes a distracted sip of his beer. "It's just Louis."

He picks his eyes up from his screen to find Niall watching him closely, suspicion evident in all the concerned lines in his face.

"I didn't know you two were texting again," he observes. "When did that happen?"

"A few days ago," Harry shrugs.

Louis had started it. He'd broken the ice there too, a few hours after their cafe trip. All he'd sent was a photo of Harry, lying on the floor in the middle of his art show, eyes closed, everyone else already gone for the night, the perfect picture of peace. It had sat there under a text from January 1st, just Louis letting him know he'd be back in Doncaster for a few days in case Harry wanted to grab some of his things from their house. Harry had never responded to it, but he'd gone to collect his stuff all the same.

The new text, however, had sparked a whole chain of texts. They've been exchanging little messages on and off ever since. Nothing serious, just surface-level stuff, but Harry's had just enough to drink tonight to want to dive in again.

_You jealous Lou? ;) ;)_

He slips his phone under the table, tries not to look so smug that he's got Louis' attention on him. It's not that he's trying to start anything, because he's not. They aren't even friends if their night out had clarified anything. They're more than that... but they're also less than that. They're always going to have that shared history, that deep, personal level of knowledge of each other. They're always going to care immensely for each other, but there's still that irrefutable space between them now. They're exes. That's the only way Harry can put it. It isn't his favorite term to use, but it's the only one he _can_ use.

_You're drunk, Styles. Don't come knocking on my door when you're off your face tonight._

"What do you text about?" Niall chimes in, curious.

"How to stop our friends from snooping," Harry lies and slips his phone back in his pocket.

"I'm not snooping," Niall reassures. "I just worry about you. Do you know how much beer I've had to drink this year just to get you out of your own head."

To emphasize his point, he lifts his glass to his lips and chugs a good portion of his drink in one go.

"Oh, the horror," Harry rolls his eyes. "That must be awful. The Irish lad having to drink _beer."_

"I don't remember ordering a side of sarcasm with it," Niall remarks.

"Sorry," Harry murmurs. "It's just, we've already broken up. What's there to worry about? How much worse can it get?"

"What if one of you still has feelings for the other?" Niall asks pointedly. "What if both of you still have feelings? What if nothing has actually changed for the better but you both get tangled up again anyway and then things go straight back to hell?"

He fixes Harry a dubious look, and that hopeful balloon that had been growing inside of Harry's heart over the past week seems to deflate quite a bit.

"Alright," he says, slouching back against the corner of their booth. "Alright, I get it. You don't think this is good for us."

"That's not what I said."

"But it was implied by your snarky tone and that judgy, judgy look you gave me," Harry grumbles. "I'll be fine Niall. You don't need to jump in and tell me how I should behave with someone I've known for nine years. I can handle it just like I did before. If it gets to be too much, I'll-"

"Hey," Niall cuts him off, lifting a gentle hand to quiet him. "Listen to me, you great idiot. The look on your stupid face when I caught you texting him was a look I haven't seen in over a year. I'm not saying that's a bad thing," he clarifies. "I'm just saying I think you should be careful."

Harry feels his phone buzz in his pocket once more but he doesn't reach for it. He won't bother with it for the rest of the night.

"Duly noted," he says quietly, fingers slipping through the condensation on his glass.

Niall reaches over and draws a smiley face in the tiny drops before Harry can brush it all away.

"Was that him just then?" he asks, referring to the unread text.

Harry shrugs. "Probably."

Niall nods just once, pauses, lets out a tired sigh. "Go on and answer him," he says. "I'm afraid your face is going to get stuck in that pout if you don't."

"Fuck off," Harry snorts.

He pulls his phone out all the same and ends up texting Louis sporadically for the rest of the night, their conversation gaining momentum the later it gets, until, before he knows it, he's back in his flat, phone pressed to his ear, Louis' voice lulling him to sleep.

\---

It takes an inordinate amount of will power for Harry to slow down after that. He does try to heed Niall's warning, but it isn't easy. The first official day of the summer holiday finds him at the park, spread out on a blanket in the grass, psychology textbook open before him, phone placed on top and thoroughly distracting him from everything he's been trying to read. It's like he's addicted to it. To Louis. It's like he's back in uni, sneaking texts to the boy from the recording studio, letting his studies slip just for a smile every few minutes.

He knows he shouldn't. He knows it's stupid and a step back and probably a bit selfish even, but with all of the emotional shit and all of the heartache he's been trying to fend off this year, he can't help but hold onto this one sliver of Louis with everything he has. Because Louis still makes him happy. Even when he's half the reason things had fallen so far in the first place, even if he's the reason Harry's heart still hurts, he's still the same Louis that Harry fell in love with. However many layers he's grown since they met, he's still the same person beneath it all.

And Harry is exceptionally aware of how careful he needs to be. For both of them.

As the sun starts to dip, the shadows growing long and weary, he sends a response to Louis, asking why on earth he'd want to look at a Buzzfeed article of the saddest looking pugs on the internet. He pockets his phone and starts packing his books and blankets away. He's supposed to be having Gemma over for dinner in an hour and he still needs to buy a few things at the market.

He makes it all the way to the grocery store before Louis' answer comes, startling him as he grabs a basket to load with bread and wine and possibly ice cream.

_Because pugs are fucking cute, Harold. Keep up._

Followed almost immediately by another.

_Maybe I should get a dog. Good idea or good idea?_

Harry just shakes his head and picks a baguette from the bread section. He should probably get cheese too. Maybe he can get away with not cooking, and he and his sister can just have wine and cheese for dinner. And grapes. He would need grapes too.

They'd talked about getting a dog once, four or five years ago. It had been right before Louis' career had taken off. While they'd both agreed to think about it, it'd quickly been left in the background as things started to grow busier and busier.

He doesn't know how Louis would manage a dog these days. Especially on his own.

_Bad idea? You do know you'd have to train it and housebreak it and everything, right? Do you have time for that?_

As soon as he sends the text, he hears a muffled alert chime from the other end of the frozen food aisle. He turns, amused at the coincidence, and finds that it's actually Louis, standing in front of the frozen dinners, completely oblivious. Harry finishes fishing around for the mint chocolate chip before letting the door bump shut and throwing the tub in his basket.

Louis doesn't even look up as he approaches. He's got his phone between his fingers, brow furrowed, corners of his mouth turned down as he reads Harry's response. He doesn't answer. He shuts his screen off with a quiet, tired sigh, and pockets his phone without sending anything back.

Because time is something Louis _doesn't_ have. Maybe Harry shouldn't have mentioned his busy schedule. Maybe the reminder hits too close to the root of their problem.

Before he can decide to walk off and give Louis the space he probably wants, Louis drops a frozen lasagna into his basket and nearly pivots right into him.

"Oh, sorry," he mutters, cheeks pink and flustered when he looks up. His eyebrows shoot up when he catches sight of Harry's panicked face. "Are you stalking me?"

"Hi," Harry answers softly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I just heard your phone go off right after I hit send and I realized it was you."

"So, basically, you're stalking me," Louis concludes.

Harry lets out a quiet laugh, staring down into his basket to hide the little flush rising in his cheeks. "Basically, yeah."

"Always knew you were a creep," Louis nods and starts off again down the aisle, allowing Harry to follow him. "Why don't you think I should get a dog?"

"I never said don't get one," Harry shrugs. "If you want a dog, get a dog. I just think it would get lonely, sitting around at home all day and night while you're locked in the studio."

"Do I look like I'm locked in the studio now?" Louis turns to head for the cereals, catching Harry's eye in the process and fixing him a hard look.

"No," Harry says. He feels a bit stupid for just acknowledging it, but no. Louis isn't in the studio. It's half five on a Monday evening, and Louis isn't in the studio. "Did you stay home today?"

"No, I finished the song I was working on, and then I left," Louis answers. "That songwriter I was supposed to meet for drinks last week is coming in tonight, and I told Liam and Dan they could work with her."

"What? Just because you skipped drinks?" Harry asks, immediately feeling awful about Louis surprising him at his art show. "That's not fair, Lou. You shouldn't get punished because of me. If I knew this was going to happen, I wouldn't have even told you about the art show."

"And then I would have felt like shit for missing it," Louis says.

"Why?" Harry frowns. "We're not together anymore. You don't have to be there for me."

Louis nods, lips pursed, basket swinging from the crook of his elbow. "I know," he agrees. "Doesn't mean I don't want to be. If I hadn't shown up, it would have been just you and Katie."

"Nothing wrong with that."

"I wanted to be there, H," Louis insists. "I tried really hard to be there, and I don't care if that means Liam and Dan get priority with that writer. If I really wanted to, I could be in that studio with them."

"Then why aren't you?" Harry asks, furrowing his brow. This is absurd. The Louis he knows would be jumping at an opportunity like this, would be skipping dinner and sneaking in the door after midnight if it meant he could get a great deal with a talented songwriter.

"I just didn't feel like it," Louis says. "All I wanted today was to go home at a normal fucking hour for once and eat my shitty, frozen dinner by myself. Is that alright?"

Maybe he _should_ get a dog. At least he wouldn't be alone all night. He'd have a friend.

"Yes, that's alright," Harry sighs, dragging his fingers through his hair and trying not to wonder why Louis never wanted any of that when they were still together. If it hurts, it's normal. He's used to it now.

"I see you're not having frozen lasagna," Louis comments as he peers into Harry's basket. They've come to a stop in front of the milk. Harry should probably buy some more, too. "That looks like date food. Have you got a date?"

 _"What?"_ Harry asks incredulously. "No, I haven't got a date. My sister's coming over and I don't feel like cooking."

"Oh," Louis says. He sounds disappointed. Like he was hoping for an argument.

"She says 'hi' by the way," Harry tells him. "She knows we're, like, talking again."

"That's good," Louis nods. "I miss her. She always liked me better."

"She did," Harry laughs quietly in agreement. He misses their shenanigans, the way Louis and Gemma would gang up on him whenever they were in the same room together. He's sure Gemma misses Louis, as well, sure she wouldn't mind seeing him again.

"Lou," he starts, grabbing Louis' preferred brand of milk off the shelf and passing it to him. "If you don't want to eat frozen lasagna tonight, you're welcome to join us."

Louis sets the milk in his basket and gives a slight nod. As much as they've been texting, and even after that hour-long phone call, they've still only seen each other twice recently. This is all still a bit foreign to both of them.

"Gemma won't try to punch me?" he asks cautiously. It's meant as a joke, but Harry can still tell by the wobble in his voice that he's hesitant as fuck about it.

"She won't," Harry promises. "But I'm sure she's going to be super weird at first."

"I can handle that," Louis says. "We should be used to weird by now."

He's right. He usually is.

\---

Half an hour later, after arguing over who gets to pay for the second bottle of wine - Harry refuses to let Louis, because Louis is his _guest_ \- and another painfully forced and polite back-and-forth with a cashier who also assumes Harry's purchases are for a date - they're _not,_ Harry promises through a terribly fake smile - they manage to get everything up and into Harry's flat, Louis following him in muted silence the entire time.

"Are you worried?" Harry asks when he realizes how quiet Louis has been since leaving the market. "Gemma knows it was mutual, what happened to us. She's not, like, going to try and _defend my honor_ or anything."

"I'm not worried about your sister," Louis says as he puts his cold and frozen groceries in Harry's fridge for the time being. "Remind me to bring these home with me or I won't have any milk tomorrow."

"Yeah, sure," Harry nods, but he still feels like something's off.

Maybe Louis' just nervous about being alone with him until Gemma arrives. Maybe it's because, even though they've been texting and talking over the phone, it's still a little overwhelming being in each other's presence again. Whether it's wandering through the supermarket, trudging up the stairs, even just pattering around in Harry's cramped kitchen, Harry can't help but notice the way they keep dancing around each other. Like they're both trying too hard to maintain that healthy space between them. Like they don't know how or when or _if_ they should break it.

He pours them both a full glass of wine with the hopes that it might help loosen things up a bit, and of course, it does. It leads to Louis instructing him on how to properly _plate cheese,_ because apparently he's been doing it wrong all these years. It leads to Louis practically hip-checking him away from the counter so he can take over, because _for fuck's sake, Harold, not like that._ It leads to Harry leaning back against the cabinets and trying really hard not to laugh as Louis struggles just to pull the knife from the wedge Harry had left it in.

There's still that safe distance between them as they carry the food into the living room and set it on the coffee table, but as Harry claims his corner of the couch and tucks his feet up on the cushions, Louis surprises him by bypassing the open armchair and dropping down beside him.

Harry nudges his bare toe against Louis' thigh. "Hi."

"Hi," Louis says into his glass, clutching it between both hands like it's some sort of holy goblet. He glances down at Harry's feet, but his attention quickly goes back to surveying the room, head twisting to get a better look. "I like your flat," he decides.

"You've already seen my flat."

"Yes," Louis agrees, "but at the time, I was superbly hungover and panicking over waking up in a stranger's bed."

"M'not a stranger," Harry frowns.

"I didn't know it was your bed," Louis reminds him. "Not a very good feeling first thing in the morning, is it?"

Harry almost nods, because _it isn't_ , but Louis quickly shakes his head.

"That was a rhetorical question," he says. "Don't answer it. Or do. I don't care, it's... whatever."

He turns to face Harry, eyes scanning his blank expression, trying to read him, his mouth drawn in a thin line.

"Do you want to know?" Harry asks quietly.

It's not like he _wants_ to tell Louis, not like it even matters in the grand scheme of anything anymore, not like there was never going to be anyone else ever again for the rest of their lives.

Louis seems curious, though, like he might actually want to know. Or like he might want to be more open with Harry, maybe not to _that_ extent, but even just a little.

"I think," he says cautiously, shifting to pull his feet up and criss-cross his legs, "I do want to know. If that's okay?"

It's not what Harry had been expecting, but yeah, it's okay. He thinks he'd like to know, too.

"Um, well. It was just once," he says, blinking slowly at his knees and trying not to feel too self-conscious about it. "It was at a really low point. I didn't know him. I barely remember any of it, I just know it wasn't a good feeling at all, waking up and not knowing where I was but being able to guess what had happened."

He peers up to find Louis nodding, tight-lipped and tense, but not altogether surprised. It eases some of the irrational guilt lying in the forefront of his mind, makes him feel a little less shitty for doing something he shouldn't feel bad about at all. They'd been broken up for weeks at that point. It hadn't meant anything and it never will.

"Did you puke in his toilet?" Louis asks.

Harry sees the corner of his mouth twitch.

"Arse-naked and crying and still a little drunk," he sighs with a miserable laugh that Louis echoes easily. "It was the worst morning of my life. I'm glad you think this is funny."

"Yes, well, you're not the one who's gag reflex decided to act up while trying to suck the widest cock he's ever seen."

"Oh?" Harry raises an eyebrow. There's a quick flash of jealousy from the thought of Louis' mouth around anyone else's cock but his own, but it's gone with the thought of their shared misery. It's not so terrible knowing he's not alone in this.

"My throat hurt for a _week,"_ Louis groans. "I couldn't even apologize for the mess I'd made, I thought I'd damaged my vocal chords."

"I guess size really isn't everything," Harry teases before he can stop himself. He doesn't know what the etiquette for sex-talk with exes is. He's never done this before. He doesn't know where to draw the line.

"You're one to talk," Louis just about gets out before the door to Harry's flat clicks open and Gemma spots them sitting together on the couch, albeit on completely opposite ends.

"Hi," she says, surprised. "I didn't know we were having company tonight."

She kicks off her sandals next to where Louis had left his trainers, and fixes Harry an intrigued, yet entirely too smug stare as she pulls her phone from her bag and goes to greet them on the couch.

"Be nice," Harry warns as Gemma approaches Louis first. He can't remember why he'd suggested they do this. His sister's always been able to see straight through him, read him like he's got all of his thoughts stamped in red ink across his forehead.

"Of course I'll be nice," Gemma says, ruffling Louis' hair and patting his shoulder. "What kind of sister do you think I am?"

Harry's silence says everything.

"Hi, Gems," Louis laughs softly in response. "It's nice to see you."

"Likewise," Gemma nods. "It's good to have you back. I was beginning to think I'd never see this one smile again."

She nudges Harry on her way to the empty armchair, grabbing the third glass and filling it halfway. Louis' smile falters a bit, but it's fine. It is. They'd known it was going to be rough when they'd called everything off. It shouldn't surprise anyone, most of all Louis, to hear that Harry hasn't been completely okay for the past six months. Harry knows Louis hasn't either, though he assumes LA must have helped a little.

"I'm sure he's been doing just fine without me," Louis decides, pulling his own feet onto the couch and taking a large sip from his glass. "Managed not to vomit on anyone for a start. There's got to be some credit in that."

The horrified noise that slips from Gemma's mouth and look of disgust that falls upon her face is enough to ease some of the residual tension left over from the previous conversation. It doesn't feel great, knowing Louis' already been with at least one other person, but so has Harry, and if they can have a laugh about it, it has to be better than letting the knowledge sit and fester in his brain, rot into something that doesn't help them at all.

"Care to elaborate?" Gemma asks, glancing between them for some sort of context.

"Not really, no." Louis shakes his head, and for the first time in many years, it feels like he and Harry are on the same team again, keeping stories for themselves and holding a front instead of splitting forces, going after each other.

"I like having you on my side for once," Harry says as he wedges his toes under Louis' thigh, his back against the armrest.

Louis shrugs. "Now that I don't have a future sister in-law to impress?"

"Oh, sweetheart," Gemma rolls her eyes, "you were never trying to impress me. All of that teasing and ganging up with me on my baby brother was only ever an attempt to impress one person."

She looks to Harry, and Harry feels his cheeks grow warm, feels his heart swoop. And then he just feels a bit sad. Because it's still over. Because for a minute or two, he'd almost forgotten.

He finishes off his glass and sticks to water for the rest of the night, nibbling on cheese and bread while Gemma noticeably steers the conversation elsewhere for him. They go on about Louis' time in LA, his new song on the radio, Gemma's recent promotion and the terrible paper-cut she'd gotten the other day. Harry sits back and listens for the most part, keeps his toes tucked beneath Louis' leg until Louis gets up to use the toilet, and when he comes back, the space between them shrinks by an entire cushion. They don't say anything about it and they don't shy away when they start to lean into each other.

It's already late when Gemma clicks on the telly and decides they need to watch the last half of Pretty Woman together. It's even later when Harry starts to nod off, squished between his sister and his ex-fiancé on his own second-hand couch, happy and warm, content.

"You okay, Lou?" he hears Gemma murmur over him once his eyes have fallen shut and he's just listening to the film, listening to Louis' breath near his ear, listening to their quiet conversation.

Louis shifts against him, shoulders rising and falling with a quiet sigh.

"Been better," he offers, keeping his voice low.

"Lonely?" Gemma asks.

"A bit, yeah."

There's a pause before Gemma answers, a pause in which Harry feels every rough beat of his own heart, stuck high up in his throat.

"I know," Gemma sighs, barely louder than the hum of the movie. "I think Harry might be, too."

\---

He wakes up with his face mushed into Louis' chest, the television and lights off, Louis' arm around his shoulders and fingers lightly grazing his bicep, trying to coax him awake.

"I gotta go home, love," Louis mumbles, voice scratchy like he's just woken as well. "Come on, H. It's after midnight and your sister left without telling us. We must have dozed off."

It's after midnight and Harry can only think to burrow further into Louis' t-shirt, the smell of him intoxicating, like a warm memory, like something he'd once dreamed of.

"H."

"M'up," Harry grumbles. He doesn't want to move. He doesn't want to say goodbye. He doesn't want the night to come to an end, not when it had been such a good one. And it hadn't even been that interesting. It hadn't been exciting or extraordinary in any way whatsoever, but it had been normal. It had been normal and he'd had Louis with him, and after over a year of staying up late, wondering when his fiancé might come home and join him, that's all he's ever really asked for.

"I can't stay here," Louis murmurs as he starts shifting beneath Harry, slowly extricating himself from the couch. "I have to go home."

"Could sleep on the couch," Harry suggests, blinking blearily. He sighs and sits up, Louis' arm falling off his shoulders and ending up somewhere near his waist.

"Or I could say goodnight," Louis says. "And sleep in my own bed like I'm supposed to."

Harry keeps his mouth shut, hunched forwards with his elbows on his knees, chin resting on one hand, head turned to face Louis just so he can see the look in his eyes that says he doesn't want to go home either.

"Come on," Louis sighs, giving his hip a little squeeze. "Are you going to walk me to the door this time or do I have to let myself out again?"

"I'll walk you," Harry says.

He gets to his feet and pulls Louis up after him, both of them stretching with quiet groans, fighting smiles as they each yawn, almost perfectly in-sync with each other. It's stupid instinct when Harry places a gentle hand on the small of Louis' back as they walk to the door. Louis doesn't shrug him off or react at all, and Harry doesn't know if it's because he's just woken up on Louis' chest and Louis' inhibitions are down, but it feels terribly like those nights when they'd first met. They hadn't even gone on a date yet, hadn't even had a first kiss, but it had always been Louis, the last to reach the door after a night of beer and football in Harry's tiny flat. Long after the other lads had already gone home, it had always been _Louis_ trying to steal a few more moments with the boy he'd fancied, the boy who'd unknowingly fancied him right back.

He slips away from Harry as he bends to put his shoes on, and when he straightens up again, there's that familiar, hesitant look in his eyes that Harry had seen in them all those years ago. He feels a small tug in his belly, a swoop that convinces him to take a step closer, and he realizes, painfully, heartachingly, when Louis bites his lip and stares down at his feet, that he'd like nothing more than to kiss him again. He fucking _misses_ him, and it hurts. It hurts to have him right there and not be able to do anything about it.

"Thanks for this," Louis says, scratching absently at his elbow. "I really hadn't been looking forward to another night alone."

Harry clears his throat. "Sucks a bit, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Louis agrees with a humorless laugh. "Could use a dog to keep me company."

He peers up at Harry, a small, wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, his eyes still the saddest, quietest shade of blue.

"If you want a dog, get a dog," Harry tells him softly. "Just don't name it something stupid. You'll be alright getting home?"

"If I'm not, I'm sure you'll hear about it in the news," Louis shrugs and fishes around his pocket for his keys. He pulls out his lighter too, his nearly empty pack of cigarettes.

"Be careful driving," Harry tells him as he unlocks the door and holds it open, leaning against the frame.

Louis steps up next to him, fingers sneaking over Harry's shoulder blade, nails scratching gently over the threadbare fabric of his t-shirt. It's another easy move that neither of them truly acknowledge.

"Goodnight," he murmurs, letting his hand skim the length of Harry's side as it falls from his back.

"'Night, Lou," Harry replies, voice barely above a whisper.

Watching Louis go is harder tonight, harder than it had been after the art show, harder than the morning he'd first come back, harder than all those nights when they'd been dancing around each other in uni. As the door clicks shut behind him and the silence settles around the empty flat once more, Harry realizes that despite everything he's tried this past half year, despite telling himself over and over again that things haven't changed, that none of their problems have gone away, he's still hopelessly, recklessly in love, and he doesn't know what he's supposed to do about it.

\---

He ends up meeting Louis for lunch at the studio later that week, which is definitely _not_ how he wants to be solving his problems. But Louis had left his groceries in the refrigerator and Harry had volunteered to drop them off at his house, _Louis'_ house, a day or two ago. Only, when he'd called to let Louis know he was on his way, Louis had admitted that he'd gone to work early again. And then he'd invited Harry to steal him away for lunch.

It's unsettling, being back in the studio after so many months away. The last time Harry had visited Louis at work, he'd followed him into the production room to spend the final hour of their relationship drinking champagne on Louis' couch and pretending everything had been okay.

Now, there's a guy he doesn't know staring at him from behind the receptionist desk like he's a bit lost, and maybe, with Louis' bag of groceries hanging off his arm, his hair held off his forehead by a pair of sunglasses, and a weird flood of memories sweeping to the forefront of his mind, he _is_ a bit lost. It's not a great feeling.

Luckily, Louis is there in a minute, sneaking out of his meeting to slide a cold hand across Harry's back and save him from having to make small talk with a complete stranger.

"Hi," he says as he pries his groceries from Harry's grasp. "Everything alright?"

He must notice the tense set of Harry's shoulders, the uncertainty in his face.

"Yeah," Harry nods anyway. He shakes Louis' hand off his back but doesn't step away. "Sorry, your fingers are freezing. How was your morning?"

"Fine," Louis shrugs. "Don't really want to talk about work today."

"That good?" Harry raises an eyebrow. It gets a small laugh out of the receptionist, who gives them both a good glance over, probably eyeing the lack of space between them with curiosity. It's something Harry is quite aware of, the way Louis is angled towards him, closer than he's been in recent history if they exclude their evening on the couch a few nights earlier.

"It was fine," Louis reassures him, throwing a quick glance back at the receptionist. "Just don't want to talk about work when we could be having lunch."

He slips a free finger through the exposed belt loop near Harry's cocked hip and starts dragging him down the corridor towards the production studio. Harry murmurs an obligatory "thank you" to the receptionist as he goes, and then they're alone again, passing closed office doors until they get to Louis' room.

"What's your new receptionist's name?" Harry asks once they're inside. It's exactly the same as it had been the night of their breakup, no new furniture, computer unchanged, Louis' gigantic headphones left on the seat of his swivel chair. Harry's not sure what he'd expected.

Louis opens the mini fridge next to the couch and sets his groceries on the bottom shelf.

"Conor," he answers as the door swings shut. "Why?"

"He seems nice," Harry shrugs. "Offered to make me a cup of tea while I waited."

Not that he'd accepted the offer or anything.

"I mean, he's alright," Louis shrugs, grabbing his phone and set of keys from the space next to his computer. "Fish and chips sound okay?"

"Of course," Harry answers. He's still a bit unsure about all of this, worried that they might be coming back together too fast, that their sudden collision has the potential to be catastrophic. But yeah, food with Louis sounds okay.

They just about make it back to the entrance, striding side-by-side down the narrow corridor in comfortable silence, shoulders bumping once or twice, when a door falls open behind them and someone calls Louis' name.

Harry can almost feel the way Louis seizes up next to him as they come to an abrupt stop.

"Sorry to interrupt," the person apologizes. It's Dan, Katie's husband-to-be. Harry recognizes his voice before he even turns to look at him, and when he does, Dan somehow looks even sorrier.

"Hi, Dan," Harry greets him, leaning sheepishly against the blank wall. He probably shouldn't be here, not in the middle of the day, not when he no longer has the right to summon Louis from his desk. "Nervous about the wedding this weekend?"

"I'd say I'm bricking it, but I'm honestly not," Dan answers with a soft laugh. "Don't tell Katie, but I've wanted to marry her since the moment you introduced us."

Louis scoffs. "What do you mean, 'don't tell Katie?' That's the sort of fairytale thing you're supposed to tell the person you love."

"Would you have told Harry?"

Harry stares down at his feet, cheeks growing warm, heartbeat quickening. Louis doesn't even hesitate.

"If that was something I had thought, then yeah," he says. "Probably."

"So you didn't know?" Dan asks. "When you first met him?"

"When he was eight shots in and kept calling me Logan?" Louis raises an eyebrow, and Harry can't help the tiny laugh that bubbles out of him. He'd almost forgotten about that.

"I thought that's what Oli had called you," he shrugs, smirking when he meets Louis' amused gaze.

"You also thought Oli was my boyfriend," Louis allows before turning back to Dan. "We're heading out to lunch. Is that alright?"

"I'm really sorry to do this," Dan says, smile slipping from his face again, "but we need you back in the conference room for a bit. Tia just got a call from Andy about those demos Liam wanted, and she needs you to go over them with us."

"Now?" Louis asks quietly. There's a desperate sort of hope in his voice that just about crushes Harry's heart. "We were just about to leave. I thought we'd wrapped everything up."

"You know how she is," Dan sighs. "It shouldn't take long, maybe an hour. Harry can wait in your office."

Louis peers over at him, and Harry tries his best not to look disappointed. It's tough, though, when he can see the frustration building in Louis' face, in the tense line of his jaw, in the furrow between his brows.

"Can we postpone it until after lunch?" Louis asks without turning away.

Harry's been here before and he knows how this ends, whether Louis puts up a fight or not.

"Lou, it's fine," he murmurs, brushing his fingertips over Louis' arm in an attempt to reassure him. It's not fine and it never really has been, but this is Louis' job and whether Harry's thrown to the side or not these days has no bearing on when or how long Louis' meetings are. He's painfully used to this. He's just not used to Louis pleading for his sake.

"I'll wait for you in the lobby," he says. "It's your job, Lou, and I'm just... I'm nobody. I'm not a good enough excuse to miss a meeting. You can't just run off with me."

Louis lets out a frustrated, little sigh, defeat sitting heavy on his shoulders as he gives a small nod and he picks his eyes off the floor, oceans swimming behind them, bluer than ever.

"I'll try to be out as fast as I can," he promises tiredly.

Harry wants to believe him. This time, he really does.

\---

Forty minutes later, he's still sat in the lobby area, fresh cup of tea held between his hands, steam gently rising from the paper cup, swirling through the air and attempting to keep him distracted. Conor, it turns out, is just as accommodating as Harry had imagined. He's offered him the brew and they've chatted a bit, and he seems perceptive enough to know that what's going on with Louis runs quite deep between them.

Harry's just giving him suggestions for the many restaurants and pubs nearby, having tried most of them over the years, when Louis comes to collect him.

He doesn't look happy. He looks a bit ill, like he's run his fingers through his fringe too many times and he's worried away at his bottom lip, like this is the last thing he'd ever want to put Harry through again.

"I'm really sorry," he says, frustration clear in his voice as he offers Harry a hand and tugs him out of his seat. His palm is still cold, fingertips like ice, but Harry still struggles to let go.

"I get it," he says, with a small shrug. "It's part of the job. It's always been this way."

"I know," Louis sighs, shoulders rising and falling with it. "I just wish..."

But he doesn't finish the thought, and Harry's glad for that.

"You're free to go now?" he asks instead, filling the silence.

"If we leave before anyone else comes looking for me," Louis mutters. He gives Harry an eye roll, his best attempt at seeming unaffected.

Harry smirks. "Don't worry, Conor will hold them off."

Conor's head pops up as if he hasn't been eavesdropping the entire time.

"Anything you need from me," he says, leaning forwards on his desk.

Harry laughs, quiet, amused. He could definitely get used to Conor if he had to. Not that he's going to have to, because this thing with Louis isn't meant to be long term. He doesn't know what it's meant to be, and maybe that's something they should talk about.

"Thanks, Conor," Louis says stiffly before leading Harry to the door. "If anyone needs me, I'm gone for the rest of the day."

"You won't get in trouble, will you?" Harry asks. He glances back over his shoulder just in case Liam or Dan come calling for him again, but it's just Conor, giving them a short wave goodbye. He'd thought they were just going to lunch.

"I've been here since seven," Louis says with a shake of his head. "Dan and I put out a complete song from start to finish. I've been answering calls for Liam all morning and just worked out a deal to get the demos he wanted. It's two o'clock and everyone knows I have a thing I need to go to tonight. I think I'm alright, H."

"You just seem to be skiving off work a lot lately," Harry comments, flipping his sunglasses out of his hair and onto the bridge of his nose as they make their way outside. He drags his fingers through the loose strands, pushing them back off his forehead.

"Twice is hardly _a lot,"_ Louis counters.

They take off down the street at a casual pace, heading towards the familiar row of restaurants Harry's missed since the breakup.

"I don't know," he says quietly, blinking down at the pavement before him. "It just seems a little foolish to skip dinner meetings and leave work early because of me."

Or maybe it's just foolish to think Louis' been doing any of this for him.

He can sense Louis' gaze on the side of his face as they slow for a moment, but Louis doesn't say anything, not about that at least.

"Can we not talk about work anymore?" he asks, voice on an edge. "I just... There's only so much time I get to spend away from that place," he tries, "and you're the only person I have outside of it. I just need to not talk about it for a while."

He steers Harry down a familiar side-street, and Harry nods, lips pursed, trying not to twist those words up in his head and make of them something that hadn't been meant to be made.

"You're going to Niall's going-away party?" he asks instead, to which Louis nods.

"Liam, too, if he makes it back in time."

"Where'd he go?"

"Halfway up the countryside," Louis explains. "His girlfriend's sister thought she was going into labor so he drove her home to be there for the birth. It was a false alarm, though. No baby yet."

"Oh," Harry says, boot grazing over a discarded bottle cap. "Is he still going to be at the wedding?" He doesn't know how he feels about being left alone with the person he'd meant to marry at another couple's wedding celebration this weekend.

"Yeah, he's driving back this afternoon," Louis says, "but he's left his girlfriend with her sister just in case."

"At least he won't be able to complain about third-wheeling for us anymore," Harry half-heartedly jokes. If anything, he's going to feel like a third wheel for Liam and Louis after the amount of time they'd spent together in LA.

They stop outside a chip shop, one they've been to countless times before. Louis holds the door open and follows Harry to the end of the queue, his hand finding the small of Harry's back as they squeeze through the narrow aisle. His palm stays there while they wait, heavy, constricting, putting pressure on the feeble boundaries Harry's been trying so desperately to keep up.

"Louis, can you..." he mutters with a shake of his head. He doesn't know why this is affecting him so much today.

"What's that?" Louis asks distractedly.

Harry nudges his arm away with his elbow, Louis' fingers curling over his shirt and sending another shiver up Harry's spine before he withdraws his hand completely, recoiling a fraction as if he'd been burnt.

"Sorry," Louis says quietly, voice going small in a way that Harry hates. He winces. "It's just like muscle memory or something. I don't know."

"It's fine," Harry promises. He just can't breathe today with Louis touching him like that - gentle, tender, like it's the most natural, easiest thing in the world. It's like each of his fingertips have been seared into his skin through the fabric of his shirt. It's all he can feel.

"That's a nice pattern," Louis mumbles, referring to the palm trees and flowers blending into Harry's button-up. "I like the colors."

He tucks his hands into his pockets, doesn't pull them out for the rest of the wait.

"Thanks," Harry replies with a sad smile. The flowers are the kind of blue that matches Louis' eyes, the kind of blue that had made him stop in the store and buy the shirt simply for that reason.

They order their food and carry it outside. Louis takes a seat on a low wall under the shade of a tree. He sets his box of fish and chips down and pulls his legs up, crosses them beneath him the same way he always has, waiting for Harry to do the same. It's a quiet mid-summer afternoon, the sun beating down on them with a slight breeze to keep them cool, and Harry wonders if Louis can feel it, too, the way this is all starting to feel like it used to. Before it all got out of hand. Before it all blew up in their faces. Before it grew to be too much.

He sits down beside Louis, tucks his own boots under his legs, sets his food in his lap, and doesn't say anything about it. If he concentrates on it, if he thinks too hard, if he warps everything in his head into something it isn't, he knows he'll drive himself mad trying to make sense of it all. He doesn't know what he's doing and he's fairly certain Louis doesn't have a clue either. All he knows is that sitting on a brick wall and eating greasy fish with the only boy he's ever loved without being able to tell him as much is one of the hardest things he's ever done.

They watch the rest of London pass as they pick away at their meals. Louis throws bits of chip to a tiny bird at their feet, and Harry leans back on his hands, that horrible longing in his chest getting worse and worse the longer they stay there.

Louis must notice how quiet he's being. He throws a chip at Harry without warning, and it hits him straight in the cheek.

"Thanks for that," Harry grumbles, chucking it back at him.

Louis tosses another, this one landing with ease on top of Harry's tongue.

"I'm not boring you, am I?" he asks as Harry wipes the grease from his lip.

"Yeah, Lou, you're putting me right to sleep."

He gets a bump in the shin for that, Louis' face scrunching up in that way Harry can never, ever resist. He wants to kiss him. All over his cheeks, his nose, his eyelids, that space below his ear and right at the corner of his jaw, his mouth. He wants to kiss his mouth.

"Have you always been such a smart arse?" Louis asks. He mirrors Harry's position, hands on the brick behind him, leaning back, their arms nearly touching.

Harry could link their smallest fingers together and close the space between them. He could turn his head just _so,_ cradle Louis' face in his hands, and capture his lips in one easy move. He could do it. He _wants_ to do it. He's drowning with the feeling, the desire caught in his lungs, and it doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel like falling in love, the way it had felt the first time around, easy, simple, almost like floating, wrapped up in a whirlwind of touches and kisses, late nights spent laughing breathlessly into each other's skin. This feels broken, complicated, like every move carries the weight of their past. Like the floorboards beneath them could collapse at any moment. This doesn't feel good.

"Sorry," Harry apologizes, sitting up, stretching his legs out, trying to breathe. "I'm just feeling a bit stuck in my head today."

"What for?" Louis asks. "Can't be worrying about school already when your summer's just begun."

"Not school," Harry assures him. "I'm not worried about that. Not worried about anything, really. I'm just... I don't know."

He blinks out at the street, at all the people wandering past them, at everyone who seems to have their life pieced perfectly together. He'd thought he'd been there. He'd thought he'd figured it out, gotten everything he'd ever needed. Now he feels like he's back at square one, never to move off the spot again.

"Want to talk about it?" Louis asks, breaking apart his last chip and dropping pieces on the pavement for the little bird.

"I'm not sure it's a conversation you'd like to have," Harry answers honestly.

Louis nods like he gets it, like he understands.

"Right," he says, collecting his rubbish to throw away. "Well, if that's the case, come on, get up." He stands and starts pulling Harry to his feet with his one free hand, tugging him off the wall.

"What are you doing?" Harry asks with a quiet laugh as he stumbles to keep his balance. He brushes the dust from his arse and adjusts his shirt.

"Niall's party is in a few hours," Louis reminds him. "I don't need you being all quiet when we get there. I need you out of your head."

"I'll be fine, Lou. It's nothing," Harry promises.

Louis purses his lips together, drops his takeaway remnants in the bin. "Those psychology books teaching you how to handle it?" he asks.

He glances back at Harry, pushes the sleeves of his black t-shirt higher up his biceps. Harry frowns at him, caught off guard.

"Psychology books?"

"I saw them in your flat the other night," Louis explains carefully. "Everything okay up in there?" He gestures towards the top of Harry's head, concern barely detectable in his voice, but there all the same.

"Define okay?" Harry deadpans before he realizes this isn't something he should joke about. "It's not for, like, _self-diagnosis_ or anything," he clarifies. "I, um. I thought I might be interested in trying something new. Career-wise."

"Career-wise?" Louis repeats, frowning heavily, forehead wrinkled, eyes narrowing. "What do you mean? You want a new job?"

Harry follows him as they start off slowly down the street, no real destination in mind.

"Maybe," he mumbles, ignoring the way Louis' eyes keep flickering sideways at him.

"Why?"

It's the same question Harry's been asking himself, the same one that digs its claws into his heart every time he opens one of those bloody books and tries to make sense of it all.

"Because it would be a change," he decides, trying desperately not to let it affect him. "And I think I could use one of those."

Louis keeps his mouth shut as he nods, checking for oncoming traffic before crossing the street ahead of Harry. He's gone all tense, corners of his lips pulled tight, fingers fidgeting restlessly with the cigarette he slips from his pocket.

"Why now?" he asks once they're walking along the other side.

Harry doesn't answer. He doesn't want to argue, he doesn't want to get into this, he doesn't want Louis to know how absolutely pathetic and desperate he must have been to take his sister's friend's advice and think that it might work, that a new job could ever hope to change anything for them. But he knows that's exactly why he'd bought those books. He knows exactly why he'd picked them up again the other day, why they'd been sat out on his kitchen table instead of tucked away in his bookshelf. He knows exactly _why now_.

"It doesn't have to mean anything," he says, taking Louis' hand and prying the cigarette from between his fingers before Louis can snatch it away. He tucks it behind his ear and lets Louis' arm drop between them, his own fingers aching to hold on just a little longer. "I'm meant to start back at school in September, and I plan on being there with the little ones until the end of the school year. If I decide to take some extra courses in the meantime, then that's all it is."

He crosses his arms and leans against the lamp post as they wait for the light to change.

"Is that okay?" he asks.

Louis stares at him for a moment, petulant creases still lining his face. He reaches up and steals his cigarette from behind Harry's ear, and Harry lets him. He hates it, but he lets him.

"Do whatever you want, H," Louis says as he pulls his lighter from his back pocket and sets a flame to the end of the stick. He takes a long first drag, filling his lungs, smoke billowing into the air between them on the exhale. "Why should my opinion matter?" he asks.

"Because it always does and it always will," Harry answers truthfully. It gets him a small eye roll. It gets him another puff of smoke in his face and Louis walking away. "And because you're being stupid about this," he adds.

"I'm not being stupid," Louis argues. "I'm just curious."

"You're being stupid," Harry insists. He can already feel the distance growing again, wedging a space between them, even if it's just a little. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe this is better for them.

Louis doesn't argue. He doesn't acknowledge it at all as they meander aimlessly down the London streets. He convinces Harry to get ice cream on their way to the park, and he nearly drops his cone in the grass as they lay out under the blue sky. It earns a quiet laugh from both of them in the middle of a few quiet hours, glowing golden beneath the sun, but he doesn't ask about the books or the courses or any more about whatever job Harry might be interested in. He doesn't say much of anything.

Whatever he's thinking, whatever curiosities he has brewing in his brain, Harry let's him sit with them. Maybe it's easier when they're both stuck in their heads. When their walls are lowered and their safeguards are down, that's when Harry's heart starts to get the best of him. Maybe this is better.

At least, that's what he tells himself when the evening falls and the park starts to empty out, when they climb into the back of a cab and head to Niall's party in near silence. Louis stares out the window the entire drive, elbow resting on the door, fingers scratching absently at the scruff along his chin. He stares out at the blurring street lights and storefronts, the cars passing by, the setting sun. He stares at the world and everything else, and Harry stares at the empty seat between them.

"Hey," he says softly, ignoring the driver's glance back at them in the rearview mirror.

Louis tilts his head towards him, fingers sliding from his jaw and settling in his lap.

"It was only a thought," Harry says, heart sitting heavy in his chest. "The job thing. I don't even know if I'll actually go through with it. I don't even know if it's something I'd enjoy."

"I said it didn't matter," Louis reminds him, though his voice comes out flat, detached. "If it's what you want, it's what you want. I'm not going to stop you."

"I know," Harry shrugs feebly. "I just feel like I've thrown you off a bit. Like maybe I shouldn't have said anything."

"I'm the one who brought it up."

"Yeah," Harry agrees, "and you don't like it."

It's not a question, but the silence that follows gives Harry all of the answers he needs.

"I guess I'm just a little confused," Louis admits after a moment.

When he doesn't elaborate, Harry tries to coax it out of him. "Confused about what?"

Louis lets out a sad, quiet laugh. "A lot of things, H," he says, "and I'm not sure it's a conversation you'd like to have."

He leaves it at that, with Harry's own words thrown back in his face, into the fluctuating void between them, and before Harry can think of anything else to say, before he can work up the courage to suggest they talk, actually _sit down and talk,_ the cab slows to a stop outside of Niall's place and they're thrust out of their private, untouchable bubble. Louis pays the driver as Harry exits and waits on the side of the road, but as soon as Louis' door swings shut, he's stalking past him, pulling out his phone and shooting off a text with his head bent low.

"Liam's already here," he mumbles, and at least manages to hold the front door open for Harry as they step inside. "I'm just going to grab a beer and let him know about those demos I got this morning. You'll be alright?"

Harry glances around the mostly-empty house, at the few guests mingling around indoors, most of them heading for the back garden anyway. He nods, not sure what else to do when Louis clearly needs a break from him.

"Yeah, let me just get a drink with you, and then I'll be out of your way," he says, following Louis through the kitchen and out the back door.

About thirty people line the low walls and walkways of Niall's garden. It's not a very spacious area, but the way he's arranged the patio and had the landscaping redone after moving in has allowed for optimal parties and summer barbecues over the past few years. There's a fire pit glowing and flickering in the middle of it all, an entire area sectioned off for the drinks, and in the back, surrounded by friends and coworkers, Harry spots Niall tending to the sausages on his grill.

"He's only going away for a few weeks, right?" Louis asks, frowning a bit at the size of it all.

"I reckon he just wanted to throw a good party," Harry muses just as an arm loops around his shoulders from behind and pulls him into a backwards hug. He stumbles into it, almost knocking Louis to the floor as he goes, twisting his head around to find himself face-to-face with Liam for the first time in months.

"What did you do to your hair?" Liam asks, slightly horrified.

He reaches up to ruffle what's left of Harry's curls, fingers raking over the buzzed sides, trying to make sense of it.

"I donated it," Harry answers at the same time Louis chimes in with, "he needed a change."

Their eyes meet for a second, but Louis determinedly looks away.

"It's all gone," Liam says, heartbroken.

"Leave him alone, Payno," Louis sighs and peels Liam's hands from Harry's head.

"Hi, Liam," Harry says quietly, probably for the first time since Liam had called to wish him a happy birthday back in February.

"Hey, mate," Liam greets him. "I'm going to assume you're the reason Louis left the office early today and missed his other meeting?"

He flashes Harry a knowing smirk, and Harry feels a drop of guilt settle in the pit of his stomach as he leads them down the back steps and over to the table of drinks. He hadn't even known Louis had another meeting. If he had, he probably wouldn't have pulled him away from it.

"You didn't tell me you had to be somewhere," he says, furrowing his brow at the boy beside him.

"It wasn't important," Louis shrugs and knowingly hands Harry the bottle of wine he'd wanted before turning to face Liam. "Don't blame Harry," he says. "He didn't know."

Liam rolls his eyes, not quite believing them. "Right," he says. "Either way, it's good to see you. Rumor has it you're staying at the same inn as us for Dan and Katie's wedding this weekend?"

"Am I?" Harry asks. He hadn't been aware.

"We're going up Saturday morning if you wanted to carpool with us?" Liam offers, catching him just a bit off guard. "I'm driving there, Louis' driving back on Sunday."

"With a terrible hangover, I'm sure," Louis sighs, but he doesn't protest. He doesn't offer his own opinion or shoot down Liam's suggestion either. He doesn't try to encourage Harry, nor does he try to fend him off.

"Is that okay?" Harry asks, looking to him for confirmation.

Louis pops the cap off a cold bottle of beer and shrugs as he throws the jagged metal in the bin.

"Yeah, it's fine," he says shortly. "It'll be good to have you there anyway, keep me from murdering Liam and dropping his body off the side of the M1."

"Oh, fuck off," Liam grumbles, rolling his eyes and taking a beer of his own.

He reaches out to clink his bottle against Louis' before they both take a sip, and as Harry finishes pouring himself a huge glass of wine, he takes that as his cue to leave. He doesn't want to be around when they start talking about work. He's not even sure why Louis wants to go over the demos with Liam when he'd made it abundantly clear throughout the afternoon that he didn't want to discuss anything to do with the studio for as long as he could.

"Where are you going?" Liam calls after him as he starts off towards the group by the fire. He thinks he recognizes a few of Niall's coworkers - certainly Jack with the Hair must be there somewhere. He's always good for an interesting chat.

"I'm just..." He shakes his head, glances at Louis to find him staring back at him, face blank, free of any emotion. "I'm just going to find Jack or someone. You two can talk about work or whatever."

He doesn't say it unkindly, but Louis' jaw still locks anyway.

Before either of them can say anything else, not that Louis _would,_ he descends the three shallow steps off the back of the patio and succumbs to the pull of the fire, the heat, the faces he remembers from Niall's previous parties. He catches Jack's eye first, _Jack,_ who'd once tried to read his fortune from the confused creases in his forehead, _Jack_ , who'd boldly stripped down to his pants in the middle of the pub to demonstrate a new yoga position he'd perfected. Maybe Harry's just itching for a distraction tonight, maybe he's just digging himself into a dangerous hole, but he gives Jack a tentative wave and slinks over to him, standing before him along the garden wall.

"You leave your shorter half home tonight?" Jack asks, nudging Harry to the side with the back of his hand as if to search behind him for Louis.

Harry rolls his eyes and takes the seat next to him. "He's over there with his workmate, and he's not my shorter-anything anymore."

"No?" Jack sounds genuinely surprised. It's been almost seven months, how could he not already know?

"Not for a while," Harry says and takes a large gulp of wine in the hopes that it eases some of the pain away. He doesn't know if it'll ever get easier, spreading the news of their breakup. God knows he could barely get the words out to his mum the day after it'd happened. It still feels like he's tearing another piece from his heart, even now.

"I'm sorry," Jack tells him. "You and Louis were good together. _Twin flames,_ I always said. It was like the textbook definition with you two."

"What's that?" Harry asks, watching Louis from across the garden. He keeps glancing in his direction, attention torn between Liam's apparent monologue and whatever he thinks is happening with Jack.

"Twin flames," Jack repeats as he follows Harry's gaze.

"You mean, like we're soulmates?"

"No, I mean like he's the other _half_ of your soul," Jack clarifies. "Like he's your mirror, like he reflects all of your best and worst traits - that sort of thing. It's more than just a soulmate. Don't you know about this?"

Harry shakes his head and lets out a quiet laugh. "No, Jack, I don't know anything about twin flames or soulmates," he says. "I just know I loved him and it wasn't enough."

"You're just going through the different stages," Jack insists.

Harry has no idea what he's talking about. He takes another sip of his wine and waits for him to elaborate.

"The runner stage, the surrender stage," he tries, still making very little sense. "My girlfriend taught me all of this - she had to do a paper on it for one of her recent psychology courses. Something about the psychological dynamics of relationships... Fascinating stuff."

"Sounds like it," Harry says with a small nod, glancing around the busy back garden as he contemplates downing the rest of his wine in one go. Louis and Liam are still locked in conversation on the other side of the fire pit, neither of them paying him any attention anymore. He doesn't know why he does it, why he bothers opening his mouth again, whether it's because he's genuinely interested or because he's just annoyed that Louis had gotten so aversive over the subject before, but he finds himself plunging back in, good idea or not.

"How's your girlfriend liking psychology?" he asks, swallowing his doubts with the rest of his drink. He sets his empty glass on the wall between them and lets his blood soak up the alcohol.

"That went down fast," Jack says with an impressed chuckle. To Harry's immense horror, he raises his hand, actually flags Louis down from across the fire, flames dancing in his eyes as he holds up Harry's empty glass, motioning for more.

"You're such an arse," Harry mutters, prying the glass from between his fingers and shaking his head. He tries to motion for Louis to stop, but Louis' already making his way towards them, deep scowl lining his face.

"She's really enjoying the work," Jack answers his previous question. "Why do you ask?"

His eyes flit back to Louis as if he already knows the answer, and Harry feels his undying disdain of him grow just a fraction more.

"I was thinking of taking some night courses, getting into art therapy," he explains without delving too deep or mentioning any of his reasons why. "And what is wrong with you? He's not a _server."_

"No, but he keeps looking over here, and I thought I'd help you out," Jack says. There's a wicked grin on his face that Harry wants to punch right off. "Twin flames, and all that."

Harry ignores him as Louis approaches. He clutches his empty glass in both his hands and tries not to let out a sad laugh when he notices Louis' nearly empty bottle. They haven't even been here ten minutes.

"Everything alright?" Louis asks, stopping before them, voice clipped. He barely even glances at Harry, his eyes dark, silhouette lined by the light of the fire.

"Just having a chat about young Harold's burgeoning interest in psychology," Jack answers with that shit-eating grin still stretching his face. "Reckon he'd make a great art therapist."

He reaches out to ruffle the top of Harry's hair, and Harry's cheeks burn up, mortified.

"Is that what you want to do?" Louis asks, finally meeting his eyes. "Art therapy?"

"Maybe, yeah," Harry shrugs, stomach in his throat. He can hardly find his voice. "I could work more flexible hours. I could work evenings, nights-"

"You could work nights," Louis repeats as the party seems to die away around them. It sounds like an accusation.

"If I wanted to, yeah," Harry nearly whispers.

"Do you?"

He stares at Harry with sharp eyes, arms crossed, beer bottle resting against the crook of his elbow, and Harry can't help feeling cornered, caged, like this is some sort of trial and any answer he gives is going to be wrong. It's felt like that all afternoon, ever since this started. He doesn't know what he could possibly say that won't leave him sounding crazy and utterly pathetic for holding onto this _delusion_ that they could try again, that they could figure their shit out, that they could make things work.

"Louis," he sighs, pleading, begging not to be having this conversation. Not here, not now.

Louis opens his mouth to respond, but Jack clears his throat and gently twists Harry's glass from his fingers again.

"I'll just get us some refills," he mutters, pointing the glass towards the drink area and clutching his own empty cup in his other hand.

He goes to leave, but Louis takes Harry's wine glass instead.

"I've got it," he insists with a dark look. "You two can finish catching up."

He turns and starts rounding the perimeter of the fire pit on his way to the drinks before Harry even has the chance to try and stop him.

"Fuck," he swears, seething.

He could honestly push Jack headfirst into the open fire.

"Told you he was your twin flame," Jack says, smug as anything beside him.

Harry doesn't even stick around to tell him what an insufferable twat he is. He just leaves him at the garden wall, following after Louis' footsteps to the back of Niall's house until he spots his glass, abandoned on the hand rail, Louis nowhere in sight.

"You should probably go after him," Liam sighs, appearing out of thin air again.

"Where'd he even go?" Harry asks. He scans the garden in search of the fast-moving, storm cloud that happens to own his heart, but he can't find Louis anywhere.

"Inside," Liam tells him. "I think he already called a cab."

"But he just got here," Harry blurts out irrationally. He pulls his phone out, ready to give Louis a call, but Liam stops him.

"Talk to him," he says, pushing the hand holding the phone out of Harry's face. "In person," he adds. "I think there's a lot that's gone unsaid between you and him since you broke up, and even more since we came back from LA. This isn't something that can be solved with a phone call."

He's right, Harry knows he is. Everyone always seems to know what's best for them before they do.

Swallowing his pride, Harry pockets his phone and gives a tired nod. He sighs and cards his fingers through his hair.

"If Niall asks, tell him I'll call tomorrow."

With that, he takes Liam's advice and passes through Niall's house, out his front door, and onto an empty street. Louis isn't anywhere to be found. There aren't any cabs in sight, no sign that he'd ever even been out there. Harry doesn't bother texting or trying to call again as the worry starts to invade his stomach. He just climbs into the first cab that'll have him and goes.

\---

He'd slipped his key through the mail slot and tried not to look back the last time he'd stepped foot on this doorstep. He'd shoved all of his essential belongings into the boots of his and Gemma's cars and had taken off like he'd never see this place again, like he hadn't wanted to. And now he's back, staring at his old front door with his fist raised against it, heart racing in his chest, too many memories flooding back as he waits for Louis to answer.

This had been his home for three years. It had been the place he and Louis had picked out together, the one with the well-equipped kitchen and the old brick fireplace, the little studio room off the foyer where they could both spend weekends working on their music or art. It's the place where Louis had proposed to him, where they'd talked about starting a family, where they'd last kissed, where they'd both said goodbye.

Harry hasn't been here since his mum and sister came to help him collect his things after the breakup. It doesn't feel good being back on his old doorstep. It doesn't feel good being the stranger outside of what used to be his home.

He knocks again after a quiet moment. He gently calls Louis' name, relaxes when he finally hears muffled footsteps.

The door swings in and Louis' there, blinking at him with wide, blue eyes, surprised, and then narrowing slowly as he starts to build his walls back up again.

"Hey," Harry exhales before the door can shut in his face.

"What are you doing here?" Louis asks. He leans forwards against the door frame but doesn't let Harry in.

"I, um. You left," Harry tries, lungs too tight. "Really abruptly. I was worried."

Louis stares at him like he's got six heads, like he can't believe that he's there, like he doesn't _want_ him there.

"I'm fine," he insists, uncrossing his arms to put one hand across the doorway. "You didn't need to follow me home. You could have just texted."

"I know," Harry says, "but I wanted to talk. I think we need to."

"Go home, Harry."

He goes to swing the door shut in Harry's face, but Harry stops him, wedges his boot in the way because _what?_

"Harry," Louis tries, but Harry doesn't budge.

"What's going on with you today?" he asks, eyebrows furrowing, hurt creeping into his chest. "Everything was fine between us until we started talking about those bloody psychology books, and now it's like you can't even look at me. Is it really so terrible for me to want a change in my life?"

It's the only thing he can think of. For a moment this afternoon, it had been like they'd forgotten they'd broken up, like things had gone back to normal, back to when they were good, and suddenly, with a few loaded questions, reality had come crashing down to ruin whatever illusion they'd been building.

"I never said any of that," Louis says tiredly. He turns and starts off back inside without closing the door, and Harry follows, assuming that's what Louis had intended for him to do.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Harry asks as he gently shuts the door behind him. His breath catches a bit when he takes a look around, finds himself surrounded by memories, both the good and the bad. It's a little overwhelming, and Louis must notice his hesitation because he stops walking off towards the kitchen and turns back to face him.

"Go home, Harry," he says, and the words hit Harry square in the chest, because for three years, this _was_ his home. For three years, he'd thought this was going to be his home with his husband, with his dog and his kids, until they needed more space, until they grew tired of living on the outskirts of the city, until they found someplace else.

"I'm just... Liam said we should talk," he tries again, taking a few cautious steps towards Louis, footsteps creaking on the wood floorboards in that familiar way. "He said there's a lot going unsaid between us."

"Liam should mind his own fucking business," Louis mutters as he leans against the open archway separating the kitchen from the living room.

"Maybe he's right, though," Harry says, approaching him. "Maybe we should talk about this, about what we're doing. Maybe it would help if we, like... if we knew what we both wanted out of this. Like, are we friends, or...?"

"Or what?" Louis huffs out a bitter laugh, lowering his arm from across the archway as Harry steps beneath it and leans against the opposite side.

Harry crosses his arms, shrugs, eyes sweeping the kitchen, scanning for signs of something, anything to remind him that it hadn't all been bad in the end, that there had still been some good to share.

"Or whatever you want us to be," he says quietly as his eyes land on a small vase in the middle of the breakfast bar, a bunch of dead and dried-out flowers drooped over the edge, crinkled petals scattered and fallen around the base. They must have been left there before Louis flew out to LA, a pick-me-up from Lottie or a thank-you from an artist or-

Harry frowns, his insides going cold, a chill creeping up his spine.

There's a glint of metal between the fallen petals, reflecting just enough light to set an image whirring through his head, one of tears and heartache, of a wilting bouquet of roses and carnations, bleeding reds and deep purples, a ring, _his_ ring, sliding off his fourth finger and clinking against the marble countertop, the door locking behind him.

Those are the same flowers he'd bought for Louis' birthday more than half a year ago. That's his engagement ring, still sitting on the breakfast bar, just where he'd left it. Louis hasn't touched either of them in over six months.

"Lou..." Harry starts, voice barely more than a whisper as Louis tracks his gaze. "Are those...? Why are your flowers still sitting here? Why haven't you put my ring away? Are you-?"

"I'm fine," Louis insists, eyes falling to the floor. Harry takes an automatic step into the kitchen but Louis' arm shoots out again, barring his entry. "Please," he says firmly. "Please, Harry, just go."

"Lou," Harry tries, but Louis shakes his head.

"Harry, I swear," he mutters. "There's nothing to talk about. I'm really, _really_ fine."

Harry blinks at him.

"Clearly you aren't if you haven't cleaned out the kitchen in six months," he says, disbelief clouding his voice. "Clearly _something's_ going on. My ring is right where I left it. You can't have... I don't know." He shakes his head, utterly confused, worried, unsure of what to do. "I know you don't like to do chores, Louis, but six months? What's going on?"

"I'm not doing this," Louis tells him, more insistent this time as he starts nudging Harry away from the kitchen. "I'm fine. Go home."

Harry takes two steps out of the archway before he stops. He can't leave Louis like this, it wouldn't feel right. He should at least put the flowers away, find a box to hide the ring in, make it less fucking depressing in there instead of leaving a constant, painful reminder of their failed relationship sitting on the worktop.

"I think we really need to talk," he says, turning to face Louis. "If you're, like, hurting or something, that's fine, I get it. I just don't understand why you would want to look at those every day. I don't understand how you could just let them sit there like that and not feel, like, a thousand different shitty things. That can't be healthy, Louis. That can't be good for you."

"What do you want me to say?" Louis asks, blocking his entrance back to the kitchen. "Do you really want me to talk about it? Do you honestly want to hear me go on and on about how shit this has all been for me?"

"It's been shit for me, too," Harry defends himself, feeling a bit attacked all of a sudden. It's not like he's enjoyed breaking up, moving out, trying to move on. Every part of it has fucking sucked. It still fucking sucks.

"What do you want to talk about, then?" Louis asks, irritated. "Would it make you feel better to know that I can't _stand_ being in this house without you? That those flowers are still there, that your ring is still where you left it because I haven't lived in this place since you left? Did you even know I was staying with Liam for three months before LA? Did you have _any_ idea?"

"What?" Harry breathes, confused as all hell. He never... no one ever mentioned that to him. Not Liam, not Niall, not Louis' sisters, _no one._

"That's why your flowers are still here," Louis tells him. "Because they were here when I left and they were here when I came back from LA, and I still - I still can't look at them and not see you. I can't be here and not feel everything I've ever felt for you."

"You should have said something," Harry tries, but he knows it's useless. Louis wouldn't have said anything, even if Harry had asked at the time. He'd had his own issues to deal with. He'd needed to dig himself out of his own hole first. "You should have told me," he says anyway.

"Why?" Louis asks with a bitter, dry laugh. "So you could feel sorry for me?"

He glares at Harry, arms crossed where he leans against the wall, eyebrows raised accusingly.

Harry doesn't respond, can't think of any words that might make this better.

"You broke my fucking heart, H. Don't act like this is news to you," Louis accuses. "Just because you thought you had to be the noble fucking _martyr_ in our relationship doesn't mean I don't get to feel like shit about it. Not everyone gets over their ex-boyfriends as easily as you do."

Harry stares at him, heart racing, feeling like he's been slapped straight across the face.

"What are you - I never, _never_ thought that," he argues, cheeks hot, burning from the whiplash. "A martyr? I wasn't trying to be a _martyr,_ Louis. We were miserable. We weren't happy anymore and you agreed with me." There's a tightness building in his throat. "I might have been the one to break down first and suggest we end it, but it was all mutual. You agreed with everything I said, and I'm not _over it_. You of all people should know that. We went through the exact same thing. If you're still broken up about it, why should I feel any different?"

He fixes Louis a narrowed glare, but Louis rolls his eyes, huffs out another stubborn breath before heading back to the kitchen.

"Right," he says, addressing Harry over his shoulder as he flicks the light back on and goes to stand by the sink. "So sleeping with strangers, getting a new shitty haircut, finding a new job - that's just you struggling to move on? Give me a fucking break, Harry. I'm not fucking stupid."

"What are you on about?" Harry asks, stopping once again in the archway, his forehead crumpling in confusion. "How is any of that relevant? I told you the job thing was just an idea. I slept with _one guy,_ and we'd been broken up for a _month."_

"A month?" Louis echoes, eyes going wide as he leans against the worktop. "Jesus, Harry. I can hardly _look_ at another guy let alone imagine full-on sleeping with one, and it's been _half a year."_

Harry almost can't believe what he's hearing. "We were broken up, Louis. We weren't together."

"Which you made damn-well sure of."

"What?" Harry scrunches his face up, almost recoiling.

"Acting like there was no other option," Louis continues, "like you couldn't ask me to work different hours, like you couldn't find a new job, like six months later you wouldn't be reading books on fucking psychology and telling _Jack_ of all people that you want a new job."

"There _was_ no other option," Harry says incredulously, staying planted where he is. "Is that what this is really about? Is that why you left the party, why you don't want to talk? Because of what _Jack_ told you?"

Has Louis honestly been saying all of this shit, dragging everything back up and accusing him of things he would never dream of doing just because Jack tried to stir things between them?

"We had just talked about the new job, Harry. We were literally just discussing it and you didn't once say anything about the night hours," Louis says, knuckles going white on the edge of the marble. "You told Niall's fucking workmate before you could tell me. Were you trying to hide it?" he asks. "Do I really mean that little to you these days? Have I just been imagining everything that's been going on between us from the moment we broke up to now?"

"For fuck's sake, Louis, I wasn't trying to hide anything," Harry argues, scrubbing a weary hand down his face. "I wasn't trying to get out of our relationship. We were drowning and I didn't know what else to do."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better? You're still thinking about that new job, you're still trying to work nights and take night classes- the exact thing that could have saved our relationship - _months_ after we've already ended things."

"I don't know what you want me to say!" Harry snaps, breath catching hotly in his throat. "You asked about the books and I gave you an answer. I hadn't even considered trying anything new until we were already broken up."

"Why not?" Louis asks, glaring at him with narrowed eyes. "Why now? Why give it a try when I'm already out of the bloody picture?"

Harry stares at him as he feels that sudden burning behind his eyes, an overwhelming frustration and disbelief finally reaching its peak. He feels cornered, trapped, like there's no where left to go.

"I never said anything," he exhales roughly, blinking back hot angry tears, "because I didn't want to get any hopes up. I just thought - _fuck_ \- that even if it wasn't exactly where I wanted to be - I could find a new job with better hours or even night hours, so that, on the impossible chance that you still fucking felt anything for me, we could actually fucking be together."

He blinks at Louis, fat tears boiling over, blurring his vision.

Louis lets his hand slide off the worktop.

"Oh," he murmurs, the one quiet syllable echoing around the silent kitchen. "Shit."

"Yeah," Harry says, his voice cracking horribly. _"Shit._ If you really thought that I could do something like that to you, use our problems as an excuse to just drop you and move on like you never meant anything to me, then honestly, fuck you, Louis. You clearly never knew me at all."

 _I fucking love you,_ he wants to say.

Instead, he grabs the dried-up vase of crackling, dusty roses, and, on his way through the door, drops the entire thing in the bin, letting it shatter behind him.

\---

The hours following the fight leave Harry feeling, quite frankly, like all of his insides have been rearranged, turned inside out, chewed up and spat back out again. After a long, silent cab ride through the empty streets of London, he climbs up onto the roof of his flat and just sits there under the black sky, knees hugged to his chest, skin prickling with goosebumps, waiting for the darkness to swallow him whole, for his nose to stop running, for his tears to dry up.

He calls his mum just as daylight starts to break over the tops of the buildings, calls and talks for a bit, imagines it isn't weird, the fact that he's phoned her at half-six in the morning, sounding like he's swallowed a cat and let it claw its way back up his throat. She doesn't ask right away what's going on, but she knows, she always seems to know when his world feels like it's breaking to bits again.

"I didn't think it would be this hard," he sniffs, cradling his phone against his ear, shoulders hunched where they're pressed up against the brick half-wall of the roof. "I thought, like, if we had a good reason for breaking up, it wouldn't be so difficult to just focus on that and not miss him so much. I thought we were doing the right thing."

"I know, baby," his mum sighs quietly down the line. "Sometimes the right thing isn't always the easy thing. Sometimes you might _think_ it's the right thing, and sometimes it just isn't."

"Do you think we made a mistake?" Harry asks, putting words to the feeling that's been buried deep in his chest for the past few months. He pulls the sleeves of his hoodie down past his fingers, tired and shivering, waiting for the answer he's not sure he's ready to hear.

"I think you and Louis are both young enough to be allowed a few missteps here and there," she says. "I _don't_ think, given the chance to go back in time and change anything, that it would be of any benefit to either of you to change the way you handled it."

Harry rubs at his nose with his sleeve. "You don't?"

"No," his mum answers. "I think it was the right thing to do at the time. If you think it was a mistake, then you learn from it and you fix things. If you don't, then you let the pain you're feeling run its course and you move on."

"And what if I still love him?" Harry asks then, because he does. So fucking much. His heart feels like it might explode sometimes with the force of it, and it doesn't feel good. It still hurts. It feels fucking dreadful.

His mum lets out a sad, little sigh. "You're allowed to love him, Harry," she says after a quiet moment. "Even when you're upset with him, you're still allowed to love him."

And Harry is upset with him. He'd gone to Louis' to fix things, to figure everything out and finally talk like they should have weeks ago. Instead, he'd had careless accusations thrown in his face, ones that had been intended to hurt, pinpricks to needle away at him until he'd snapped and let slip some words he probably shouldn't have said.

He just doesn't understand how Louis could think he'd ever do that to him, use their problems as an excuse to break up, move on, sleep with someone else, make all these lifestyle changes as if his boyfriend of eight years never meant anything to him. They'd been together for _eight years._ Louis knows every inch of his heart, knows he'd cried the first time he'd kissed a boy, knows the thought of being with someone forever used to scare the shit out of him, knows exactly when those feelings changed, knows he's the reason for it, for a whole lot of what's inside Harry's heart.

And Harry knows Louis too, and he knows that his behavior wasn't normal. They've never fought like that, not even when things started to turn sour. He keeps thinking back to it, to the words they spat at each other and the way everything went so, so wrong, and it just keeps making him feel worse, sick to his stomach, heart crushed in a vice all over again.

Harry wants to believe his mum, he does. Just, right now, with Louis half a city away, willing to sabotage everything they've been rebuilding, willing to believe that Harry, _his_ Harry, could actually hurt him like that... it doesn't fill Harry with a whole lot of confidence. It doesn't make any of this seem fixable. It just leaves him feeling a bit empty, a bit angry, a lot sad.

As the sun rises into full view above the London skyline, Harry finishes the call, lets his battery die out and waits another hour before slipping back in through the fire escape and sleeping for as long as he can. He wakes in the evening just to pack a bag for Katie's wedding and lay his suit out across the back seat of his car. He climbs the stairs again, locks his door and sleeps through till Saturday.

\---

He doesn't expect to find a car already waiting for him when he finally shuffles out of his flat the following morning, hair still damp and drying, holdall thrown over his shoulder, travel mug full of coffee clutched between his fingers. He freezes, blinks at the familiar, black Range Rover, frowns bit, shakes his head, and continues on to his own car, parked several meters away.

Without missing a beat, engine of the Range Rover cuts off and the driver's-side door swings open.

"Hey, Sunshine," Liam calls. "Where do you think you're going?"

The door closes softly behind him, and Harry doesn't turn around, doesn't want to know if Louis is sitting there in the front seat, watching him through the wind screen as Liam makes his way over.

"I'm going to a wedding," he says quietly, popping open the boot of his car and letting his bag slide off his shoulder into it. He goes to close it but Liam's hand flies out to stop him.

"Come with us," he says. "Please, just... I know you're pissed at him, and I know he probably deserves it, but please. I'm not going to make you drive up there all alone. I don't mind having you with us."

"What about Louis?" Harry asks, holding his warm mug with both hands, clutching it to his chest. He's pretty sure Louis would rather walk to the wedding than spend three hours stuck in a car with him after the way they'd left things the other night. _Harry_ would rather walk.

"Louis is..." Liam sighs and shakes his head. He licks his lips. "I wouldn't say he's stubborn, but he's, like... proud, I guess?"

"I know," Harry murmurs. "I was with him for eight years. I know what he's like."

Liam nods and, before Harry can stop him, he takes a seat on the bumper, eyes flickering back over to Louis' car. "Ever since I first met him, he's always been so sure of everything," he says softly, fondly. "Whether it was his music or _you_ or just his life in general, he always knew what he wanted. He'd get these ideas when we were in the studio sometimes, and I'd just look at him like he was crazy, like his suggestions were never going to work, and I'd tell him that and he'd go ahead and do them anyway, and he'd be right. He'd always be right. Everything he does turns out to be the best."

"He's good at his job, Liam." Harry shrugs. "I know that already."

He's seen Louis in the studio countless times. He's a producing genius. That's why he'd made the decision to end their relationship instead of forcing him away from his job in the first place.

"Then you know he doesn't doubt himself very often," Liam agrees.

Harry takes a small sip of his black coffee and gives a short nod. "No, he doesn't."

"These past six or seven months, I've seen him hesitate more times than I have in all the years that I've known him," Liam tells him. "It's like he doesn't know what he's doing without you. It's like you've made him rethink everything he's ever known. He could barely finish a song in those first few months, Harry. I had to drag him off to LA just to get him out of his own head. And now that we're back, it's like he's not in it anymore. He's getting things done in the studio but his heart isn't in it."

"He's been skipping meetings," Harry says. "When he came to my art show, he was supposed to be out with you and a client. And he left work early the other day."

"To spend time with you," Liam notes.

Harry stuffs his free hand in the pocket of his tatty, grey joggers, not quite sure where to look. "That doesn't mean he wants to drive to a wedding with me."

"He's not the one driving."

"It's _his_ car." Harry rolls his eyes.

"He's crazy for you," Liam blurts out then, causing Harry's stomach to drop uncomfortably. "He always has been and I think he always will be, in all of the best and worst ways. Just come with us. You don't have to talk to him or even to me. You can sleep the whole way, I don't care."

Harry steals a brief, uncertain glance at the Range Rover, but the sun's too low to see inside, reflecting right off the windscreen and hitting his tired and puffy eyes.

"Did you tell him you were coming to get me?" he asks, turning slowly back to Liam and squinting against the bright morning light.

"Yes," Liam sighs. "I told him before I even got in the car."

"What did he say?"

"He just handed me the keys and told me to drive."

He pulls the keys from his pocket twirls them around his finger, all of Louis' keychains jingling with it, even the ones he probably should have gotten rid of by now. He's still got the little football Harry had bought at their first Rover's game together. He still has the green, plastic ring Harry'd found on the floor of the old uni studio, the one he'd shoved on Louis' finger while wrapped up in Louis' sheets, tired and giggling from sex and promising to marry him not three weeks after their first date.

"Come on," Liam says softly, watching the fight drain from Harry with just a few stupid memories. "I'll grab your bag. You can hang your suit off the back of my seat."

Harry heaves a quiet sigh. He doesn't know why he agrees to it, he doesn't know why he does anything anymore. This past year - everything leading up to the breakup and everything after it - has left him utterly exhausted. He's drained. Too many emotions have spilled out of him, too many, too often. It's like he's gone a bit numb. He doesn't feel like fighting this morning.

He waits until Liam lifts his holdall out of the boot before he shuts the lid and fetches his suit from the back seat. The Range Rover's engine starts purring again with Liam back in the driver's seat, and by the time Harry opens one of the back doors, his heart is in his throat. It's odd, climbing into the back seat. Even when Louis' family would visit, they'd always insist he sit up front with his boyfriend.

"Sorry for making you wait," he mumbles, voice not at all as steady as he'd have liked it to be as he fastens his seatbelt and finds himself faced with the back of Louis' head.

He places his mug in the cupholder, and Louis doesn't respond. It twists like fire in his lungs, scorching his insides until his quiet breath feels like sandpaper running through his windpipe.

"You want the radio on?" Liam asks as he pulls onto the road.

Harry blinks a few excessive times and leans his head against the window. He closes his eyes.

"I don't really care," he says hoarsely. All he can think about is Louis, two feet in front of him, pretending he doesn't exist, pretending he's not there. Even when they were together, even when things had gotten bad, they had never been _this_ bad. They were never cruel to each other, never intentionally tried to hurt each other. Not like this.

It doesn't matter how stubborn or proud or _uncertain_ Louis might be. He should still be able to realize how fucked up this is.

"Turn it on," Louis says quietly before Liam can make a choice either way. "Harry always sleeps better with the radio on."

With his forehead pressed against the cool glass, Harry squeezes his eyes tighter, breath coming out hot through his nose. _He's crazy for you. In all the best and worst ways_. Love shouldn't feel like that. It should be something he should _want_. He shouldn't be afraid of it. It shouldn't twist his stomach into sick knots. It should only fill it with butterflies.

Liam turns on the radio for him. It isn't as easy falling asleep as Louis had made it sound, but he's tired enough that he wants to try. He hugs his arms around his middle, the chill from the air conditioner getting under his skin, and as soon as they're out of London and speeding down the open road, the music starts to fade and his thoughts shut down.

\---

When he wakes up, they're stuck in traffic. He barely blinks his eyes open, but he can feel the stop and start of the car as it slugs along, hardly going anywhere. He can hear Liam rambling on about the impatient baby-watch texts his girlfriend's been sending the past few days. Every once in a while Louis will interject a non-committed, mumbly response, but it's not enough to hold Harry's attention.

He lets his eyes fall shut again, hoping to drift off with the heat of the sun keeping him warm. The hoodie draped across his front slips down his shoulder, and it's only then that Harry realizes someone's covered him up while he'd been asleep. He glances down, recognizes the hoodie as Louis', leaves it gathered in his lap and tries not to think too hard about it.

"I bought her a ring when we got back from LA," he hears Liam say, branching off the subject of his girlfriend. There's an excited edge to his voice, anticipation sitting right over a bed of nerves. "I think I'm going to ask her soon. I don't know how yet, but I don't think I can wait much longer."

"Yeah?" Louis asks, sounding only mildly interested. "How long have you been together now? Two years?"

"Just about," Liam answers, and Louis lets out a low whistle that goes straight through Harry's heart. Not even dating for two years and Liam's already looking to get married. Harry's entire engagement to Louis had dragged on for that long.

"Do you know how you want to propose yet?" Louis asks. "Going to do a big, expensive dinner at some posh restaurant? Wine and dine her the old fashioned way before you get down on one knee?"

Harry hears him shift around in his seat as Liam chuckles quietly.

"I dunno, maybe," he murmurs like he hasn't put that much thought into it yet. "I was thinking we could go away somewhere. Paris or something? Make a bit of a holiday out of it."

"Go big or go home?"

The car rolls forward about ten meters before slowing to another halt.

"How did you do it, then?" Liam asks as he taps against the steering wheel. "I don't think you ever told me the story of how you proposed to Sleeping Beauty in the back seat."

Harry tries his best to keep his face slack and neutral, but it isn't so easy when his heartbeat suddenly quickens. Louis shifts again, probably to check that he's still asleep, and it's silent for a split second, silent but for the distant hum of the radio, the engines rumbling outside, the terrible beating of Harry's heart. And then, as if recounting the story isn't about to be torture enough, Harry feels Louis drag the hoodie back up to his shoulder, gentle as ever, like it's something he's done a thousand times before without waking him. For a moment, Harry stops breathing altogether.

"Is he still shivering?" Liam asks, concern edging his tone.

"Not anymore," Louis mumbles as he turns back around. "I just don't want him waking if he gets too cold again."

Liam sighs quietly, and Harry's heart lurches up into his throat.

"He always used to shiver in his sleep," Louis continues, unprompted. "I'd hear his teeth chattering away in my ear in the middle of the night, and I'd have to get up and slip his socks back on his feet so he wouldn't freeze to death."

"All it took was his socks?" Liam muses.

"Yeah," Louis says with an embarrassed laugh. "I don't know why. It was always really weird, but it worked every time."

"And is that how you proposed?" Liam asks. "Not with a ring but with a pair of socks?"

Harry can almost see Louis' eyes roll, even with his eyelids sealed firmly shut and Louis facing the opposite way.

"No," Louis huffs, almost offended. "It wasn't anything, like, flashy or showy, but it certainly wasn't with _socks."_

"How'd you do it, then?" Liam urges. "I need ideas, Tommo. You've never told me this story."

Harry holds his breath again as Louis lets out another resigned sigh.

"Alright," he says quietly. "Like I said, it wasn't super extravagant or anything. I didn't hire an airplane to write it out in the sky for him, so don't be disappointed if this doesn't live up to your expectations."

"I don't have any expectations," Liam insists.

"Good," Louis says. "So, you know how Harry's always been obsessed with Scrabble?"

"No, but go on."

The car lurches forward a bit more.

"Well, he is. He's got like four different versions of the same game," Louis continues as if it's all common knowledge. Maybe for him it is. Maybe trivia like this comes as easy to him as breathing. "The day I bought his ring, I went through all the letter tiles from one of the games so that the next time we played, I could sneak them onto my rack and spell out the words 'Will You Marry Me.'"

"How on earth did you pull that one off?" Liam asks, amazed.

"It wasn't easy," Louis says softly, no doubt remembering the day he'd had his chance to finally do so.

Harry remembers it. It had probably been the happiest day of his life. It still might be, if he pushes past the ache in his chest and tries to think of then and only then, not of what had happened after, a little more than two years later.

It had been the first major snow fall that December. Not enough to cause too much trouble, but enough to cancel school, enough for Harry to convince Louis to skip work and stay home with him. They'd spent the morning in bed, watching the snow fall out the window, making love beneath the sheets, unbelievably infatuated with each other. Louis had lit a fire in the early afternoon and Harry had set up Scrabble on the coffee table, the heat from the flames keeping them warm in just their t-shirts and pants.

He hadn't even noticed the words spelled out in sequence across the board as Louis had set them down one by one. They'd sat there for three full turns, hiding amongst the others, but Louis had kept quiet about it. He'd waited patiently for Harry to pick up on them on his own, to put the question together without him, and as the words finally started to click in his head, all Harry could think about was how utterly absurd it all was that someone could possibly love him so much that they'd want to spend the rest of their life with him. It had been the first time he'd felt a love so strong. He hadn't known what to do with it.

"What did he do?" Liam asks as the traffic finally seems to let up and the cars start building speed again.

Harry had cried. Too many emotions, the vast majority of them happy ones, flooding his system all at once. He'd just burst into tears, fat, salty drops of water helplessly running down his cheeks. He'd sat there, a shaking mess on the rug, while Louis had scrambled over the coffee table to hold him and kiss him, slip the ring onto his finger and flatten him to the floor. As they'd worshiped each other with their hands, their mouths, their bodies, Harry had felt like the luckiest person in all of space and time.

"He'd said yes," Louis answers quietly, skipping over all of that, over every intimate and private detail that only they could ever know. "He'd told me he'd marry me, and I'd believed him."

The atmosphere in the car grows invariably colder. Harry's heart sinks straight through his chest, whatever's left of it giving one weak, exhausted beat after another. He's fucking _tired_ of everything he's been through, tired of having love consume him, draining him of everything he has.

He'd never meant to break his promise. He'd never meant to hurt anyone.

"You want my advice, Liam?" Louis asks abruptly, that hardness back in his tone. "If you love her - if you really want to marry her - don't spend your days fussing over how you're going to propose to her. Just fucking do it. If she's the one, you'll know it. Marry her before she slips through your fingers."

\---

The inn they're staying at is a cute, picturesque thing, overlooking a rolling, green field with a small pond situated in the center. From the parking area, Harry can see the wedding venue across the way - a gorgeous estate lined with square hedges, an enormous white tent already set up on the lawn.

He slowly unbuckles his seatbelt and rubs sleepily at his eyes, having fallen asleep again not long after the engagement discussion. Everything feels a bit much right now, senses overloaded as if the war that's been going on in his heart, in his head, has somehow started seeping into the rest of his body, his muscles, his bones, leaving him aching all over.

He stretches his arms over his head as Liam cuts the engine and throws Louis the keys. His spine pops a few unsatisfying times.

"Have a good sleep?" Liam asks, meeting his heavy gaze in the rearview mirror.

Harry folds Louis' hoodie up and passes it back to him. "Yeah, it was fine," he says, and then to Louis, "thanks, you didn't have to."

"You were shivering," Louis mumbles. He doesn't say anything else, just climbs out of his car following Liam, and goes to fetch the bags from the boot. Because they're still not speaking to each other. Of course. Everything he'd said about Harry on the drive up had been meant for Liam's ears only. He'd never have been so open about any of it if he'd have known Harry had been listening.

Harry tries to take a deep, calming breath, and shake the dejected feeling out from under his skin, but his inhale comes up short. He can't do it. He can't catch a deep enough breath. His lungs just don't want to work properly for him.

Trying not to attract attention, he ducks his head, hair almost touching the seat in front of him, and attempts to count his breaths with his face held in his hands, just a for a minute. In for three counts, out for three. In for four, out for four. All the way up to eight before the uneasiness starts to subside and his chest starts to open up again.

It isn't a panic attack, he tells himself. He's had enough of those throughout the course of his life to know what they feel like. He's just letting Louis get to him, that's all. He's letting Louis get in his head and shut him down, and he can't, _can't,_ be dealing with something like that when he's here to celebrate his good friend's wedding.

"Everything okay?" Liam asks when he finally emerges from the car, shaky hand carding through his hair.

He passes Harry his holdall, and Harry nods, slinging the strap over his shoulder.

"Yeah," he says, ignoring the way Louis keeps his distance, face buried in his phone. "Just, like, car sickness or something."

He knows, when Louis picks his head up to glance his way, frown carved deep in the lines of his face, that Louis doesn't believe him. Harry's never gotten sick in a car in his life. But Louis doesn't say anything about it, and Harry doesn't want to talk about it, not when they aren't even talking at all.

He follows the two of them inside, stomach still coiled in a tight knot as they approach the welcome desk. The tension doesn't ease up, even when the receptionist hands Louis the key to his and Liam's room and they leave to get dressed for the wedding. It doesn't ease up, even when Harry climbs the stairs to his own room and locks himself inside, collapses atop his rickety twin-sized bed, the springs squeaking and creaking under his exhausted weight.

He hates this. He honestly has never felt worse in his life than he has in all of the months since New Year's Eve combined. He'd thought everything had reached its peak, but this somehow feels like a new low. Maybe it's because, throughout all of that, even when he and Louis hadn't been in communication with each other, they were still okay. They weren't angry, they weren't fighting, they had just needed their space to heal.

Only, they clearly hadn't healed at all. If they had, they wouldn't have torn each other down the other night, wouldn't have dug their claws in and ripped open the jagged lines that were already bleeding all over each other's hearts. They aren't any better than they'd been when Harry had kissed Louis goodbye that one last time and shut the door behind him. If anything, they're in a far worse state.

Head still in a fog, heart heavy and lungs tight, Harry forces himself to get up and get ready for the wedding. He becomes vaguely aware as he straightens up in front of the full-length mirror, black trousers on, silk shirt still unbuttoned, that Louis is just down the hall, doing the same, that once upon a time, he'd imagined this for them, a wedding of their own, separate dressing rooms, hearts beating hard, preparing for the most important day of their lives.

He tries to shake the thoughts from his head as he does up half of the buttons on his shirt with unsteady fingers and slips his arms through his fitted jacket. It doesn't work. He still feels like shit when he grabs his phone and key from his bed, and slips into the narrow corridor, breath still coming more shallow than he'd like.

Liam is waiting for him near the bottom of the stairs. Louis isn't with him. That's okay. That's fine.

"Tommo went ahead to save us some seats," Liam explains, hands wedged deep in the pockets of his trousers. They look expensive, probably are.

Harry stares down at his own outfit, the shirt Louis had bought him to wear to some awards dinner, the jacket Louis had probably paid for, too. Maybe he should have splurged a little and purchased something new.

"You look fine," Liam says softly, pulling at the end of his jacket. "You're here to have fun, remember? Don't spend all day thinking about him."

He's right - Harry's learned to accept that. With a small nod, he follows Liam outside and down along the path leading to the estate. Even then, despite the flowers and the sunshine, the prospect of a party trying to lighten his mood, he still can't swallow the lump in his throat. He still can't get over this feeling.

And it's an utter shame, because the outdoor area for the ceremony is absolutely _stunning_ \- rows and rows of white folding chairs stretching out across the grass, hundreds of fresh, bright flowers lining the center aisle, everyone in their fancy dress. It's like something out of fairytale, like something Harry had once dreamed up, and all it does is make his heart ache.

He spots Dan off to the side, standing with his groomsmen, chatting away to a man whom Harry can only assume is his brother. A few familiar faces catch his eye as he lets Liam lead the way to Louis, people Harry's met at the studio, music executives, a couple of minor recording artists even. Some other teachers from Harry's school are sat on the opposite side. Harry gives them all a small nod before Liam gently takes a hold of his hand and guides him towards the back.

It's all so gorgeous, and it's all a so overwhelming. Everyone is beaming and buzzing, radiating happiness and warmth, and despite all of that, despite being surrounded by it, immersed in it, Harry can't help but feel left out, left behind, locked up inside his own head with no one there to pull him out. He can't help but feel a bit hopeless.

Liam squeezes his fingers and files into the last two seats of a row near the back, letting go before he sits down. Louis is to his left. He glances up at them, and Harry finds his heart breaking all over again. No matter how beautiful everything else always seems to be - the roses, the cloudless sky, the soft strings playing in the background - Louis will forever be the one to take his breath away like this.

Harry was supposed to marry him.

"Did we miss anything?" Liam asks, absently reading a text from his girlfriend.

"Just Dan nearly lighting the arbor on fire," Louis mumbles. He nods behind them at the back of everything, and Harry follows his gaze, notices the glowing lanterns placed near the start of the runner.

When he turns back around, Louis is staring at him, eyes unreadable.

They'd wanted lanterns at their wedding, too. Rustic ones with white candles, one on each table, one at the end of each row. It had been the first thing they had agreed on, the only thing that had ever been decided for their wedding. By the time they'd broken up, they hadn't even had the chance to pick a date yet. Not a month, not a season, not even a year.

"You look nice," Louis says quietly as Harry turns away, too afraid of the emotion that might be visible on his face.

He's saved from having to respond by the sound of shuffling around them, the wedding party gathering, guests hushing in their seats, the mini-orchestra cutting off, ready to start playing for the procession.

Harry tries not to think about Louis' comment. As the music starts up and Dan and Katie's family and friends slowly make their way down the aisle, Harry tries not to think about a lot of things. He stands when he's supposed to, feels a quiet flicker of warmth in his chest when Katie appears next to her father, doesn't allow himself to imagine his own wedding, tries not think about Louis at all, not one bit, not even for a second.

He tries, and he fails. Miserably.

It's just... they'd _promised_ each other. When Louis had slipped the engagement ring on his finger and kissed him into the living room floor, they had promised to love each other forever, to marry each other, to fight through anything that fell in their way, to fight _for each other._ And they'd broken all of that. First, they'd broken the promises, and then they'd broken each other.

This should have been their day. This should have been their happiness. They'd never fought and they'd hardly ever argued. All they'd ever done was love each other so much that it had _hurt,_ and it still hadn't been enough. It hadn't been enough to make everything else work out in the end.

And now they're here, sitting two seats away from each other at a wedding that isn't theirs. They're here and they've ripped each other open, haven't been brave enough or strong enough to apologize yet, and they're bleeding all over the place. Harry is, at least. That sick pit in his stomach won't heal, won't go away. That hole in his heart is pouring out, stretching, splitting open. The longer the ceremony goes on, he sees more and more in Katie and Dan the love that he knows had been between himself and Louis. It had been there and they had felt it. It had been real, he knows it had, and they'd deserved to have happiness like this, too.

Listening to their vows, Harry glances sideways down the row to find Louis stone-faced and stock-still, knuckles white where they're folded in his lap. He's the most devastatingly beautiful thing Harry has ever laid eyes on, and it breaks his heart every time he looks at him, to know how much he still loves him, to know that none of that had mattered in the end, to know that it doesn't matter now.

He tries to turn away and focus on his friends as they finish their vows, but his eyesight is blurred and his breath catches in his throat, the same pressure he'd felt as they'd gotten out at the inn sitting like a lorry on his lungs. The officiant starts pronouncing them husband and wife, and all Harry can think about is Louis, about how his entire heart is and always will be consumed by him, how he doesn't know how to stop it, how he doesn't think he really can.

He goes to take a deep breath, but it isn't enough. He tries again, searching for oxygen, but it's like he's drowning suddenly, sinking beneath the surface, barely holding on anymore. Katie and Dan kiss each other in front of everyone, and then the ceremony is over, everyone is applauding, rising to their feet to cheer them back down the aisle, and Harry feels like he's suffocating. He moves to stand, but his head gives a dangerous spin, vision blurring with _tears_ of all things, and he gives up, leans forwards in his seat, elbows coming to rest on his knees as he takes shallow breath after shallow breath.

"Harry?" Liam's worried voice sounds in his ear. "Are you okay, mate?"

Harry shakes his head, eyelids screwing shut.

"I can't breathe," he exhales, smudging the tears out from under his eyelashes with the backs of his hands. "I don't know what's - happening. I'm-"

He inhales roughly, heart beating faster in his chest. Fuck, it's like every horrible thing he's thought from the past week, past seven months, has just condensed into a thick black cloud and dropped on his head. It's like everything's been building up to this moment, right here, at the worst possible time. He's so fucking unbearably in love and there's nothing he can do about it. It's over and they've made their choices. Louis gets to go on as a successful producer and Harry gets to wake up every morning without him.

He barely notices the rest of the wedding party as they make their way down the aisle, everyone following the happy couple away from the altar. All he can focus on is the pain in his chest, how much it aches every time he takes a gasping breath. He needs to get out of there. He isn't going to let his own disaster ruin his friend's wedding.

With another shake of his head to try and clear it, he pushes the weight of Liam's hand off his shoulder and excuses himself away from the other guests. He finds the first opening through the surrounding hedges and slips out, down a brick path, down a narrow set of stairs leading towards the pond.

As soon as he's down the steps, he collapses onto the bottom one, head between his knees, fingers knotting in his hair, pulling because the physical pain is almost better than what he's actually feeling. And what he's feeling is too much. Too much regret, too much heartbreak, too much guilt and not enough of anything that could possibly hold him together. His breath comes short and unsteady, too quick and too forced, and all he can think about is the fact that he's going to be alone forever. He's going to die alone, the love of his life having slipped away, forced from him for no fucking reason.

He doesn't realize how hard he's crying until his entire body shudders, shaking as a sob wracks through it. He doesn't know what he's doing. Everything had been alright lately, not _good,_ but he was getting on, thought he was making progress, and now it's like January all over again. His skin is crawling and his lungs are betraying him, and there's a stupid fucking voice shouting in his head that he's made the biggest mistake of his life, and he can't for the life of him quiet it enough to remember how to breathe.

He's barely there for thirty seconds when he hears footsteps echo down the stairs, the soft patter of expensive shoes coming his way, the crunch of gravel beneath a heel. He tries desperately to dry his eyes, but he hasn't got a kleenex and he doesn't want to ruin his suit jacket.

"Hey," Louis says quietly, carefully, crouching down in front of him and taking his face in both his hands. He thumbs at the tears running down Harry's cheeks, and Harry sniffs hard, turning his head away, unable to look him in the eyes.

"Don't," Louis murmurs, cupping his jaw like he's made of glass. "Please."

"M'sorry," Harry hiccups, pulling away. He tries to cover his face with his sleeves, but Louis takes his trembling hands and holds them tight.

"Baby, please relax," he says. "Just breathe. You're okay. Deep breaths. I'm right here."

Harry knows that, he does. Physically Louis is right there, but that doesn't stop him from feeling so bloody far away in every other sense.

"I don't- I don't know what happened," he manages to choke out, blinking tears from his eyes and looking from the pond to the sky to his knees, anywhere but Louis. He takes another quick gasp of a breath and ends up swallowing half of it. "The wedding just... It just got to me, and I- I couldn't stop thinking - about us."

"I get it, Harry, you don't have to explain yourself," Louis tries to soothe him, but Harry shakes his head, lets go of Louis' hand just to wipe his face again.

"That was supposed to be us, Lou," he says, face screwed up. "We were supposed to get married."

"I know, H."

"We were so in love."

"We were," Louis agrees.

"You wouldn't even talk to me this morning," Harry says around a shuddering breath, "and the other night - the things you said about me, about us - they weren't true. None of it was true, I would never-"

"I know, baby," Louis quiets him again, shifting off the balls of his feet until he's sitting on the brick path in his smart clothes, still holding Harry's left hand. "I know," he says, "and I'm so, so sorry for it. I just... I don't know how to be around you anymore and not - not feel fucking _everything."_

"It really sucks," Harry says with a wet and miserable laugh. He can't help when it turns into a sob, which turns into a cough, which has him burying his face in his free hand again while Louis squeezes his fingers. God, he feels fucking awful.

"I'm right here, love. You'll be okay," Louis promises, running his thumb over his knuckles. "If you calm down enough, we can go back to the party and have some fun, have a drink or two."

"Or twelve," Harry wheezes.

"Or twelve," Louis concurs. "I won't even have to hold your hair back anymore when you go to puke your lightweight guts out tonight."

He scratches gently over the shorter sides of Harry's hair and Harry sniffs hard again, eyes itching as he picks his head up, Louis' hand cupping the back of his head.

"M' _not_ a lightweight," he mumbles, but it doesn't come out nearly as annoyed as he'd hoped it would. It just sounds exhausted.

A small smile breaks out on Louis' face and he continues stroking Harry's head. "Of course you remember to breathe just to argue about _that,"_ he says, and there's far too much fondness in his voice. "You _are_ a lightweight, and your head feels really weird like this. I don't know if I like it."

"Then stop touching it," Harry says. He goes to force a deep breath into his lungs, shoulders shaking as the air catches in his throat on the way down. He coughs into his fist. "I cut it because of you, just so you know."

"So I would stop playing with it?"

Harry shakes his head, nudging it against Louis' hand as he goes to pull away. "Missed you playing with it," he corrects. He sniffles again, rubs at his nose, takes another ridiculously forced breath.

Louis stares down at the space between them, the toes of Harry's shoes nearly touching his knees. "You're really not helping when you say shit like that."

"Sorry," Harry apologizes weakly. He realizes he's still holding Louis' hand, and, against everything in his heart, lets go, untangles their fingers, hugs his arms around his middle instead. "We could try giving each other more space," he says. "If this is too much?"

"I don't know if I can do that," Louis says sadly.

"But we could try," Harry whispers, gripping his sides. He doesn't know what else to do. Things had certainly been easier when they had been continents apart, not seeing each other every few days, not dredging up feelings buried haphazardly beneath the surface. It had been a start, to say the least. Maybe not a good one, but it hadn't felt like _this._

"We did try," Louis reminds him. "I'm not sure you know this, but you're incredibly hard to stay away from."

"Even when I yell at you and tell you to fuck off?" Harry asks, ducking his head, embarrassed.

"I deserved it," Louis says, dragging a finger along the toe of Harry's boot. "I know you would never have done that to me, Harry. I know you loved me, that you would have done anything to keep me. It's just... the thought of you moving on while I'm still trying to come to terms with it... I was having a hard enough time being in that house without you, and seeing you do so well without me, I-"

"Louis, I'm sat here crying over you at a friend's wedding," Harry scoffs. "I don't know if that qualifies as _doing_ _well."_

"You haven't got dead flowers from your ex-boyfriend in your kitchen."

"Because my ex-boyfriend never bought me any," Harry says with a small shrug. He doesn't know where they're going with this. He doesn't know what he wants. He doesn't know what Louis wants. "Why are you here?" he asks, meeting Louis' eyes, knowing his own must be a red, swollen mess.

Louis stares at him, lips pressed, weariness tugging at the corners of his face, and all Harry can see is the uncertainty of it all, the toll all of this has clearly taken on him. _It's like he doesn't know what he's doing without you. It's like you've made him rethink everything he's ever known._ Harry guesses the answer before Louis even opens his mouth to say it.

"I don't know," Louis decides, lowering his eyes, his fingers pulling at the blades of grass sticking up between the bricks in the path.

It's not enough. Harry's going to need more than that.

"Is it because we're friends and you're worried about me?" he asks. He nudges Louis' knee with his foot, still trying to wrap his head around that - the idea of being friends and only friends. _Exes._

When Louis doesn't answer, he tries to ask again in the way he thinks might hit closer to the truth.

"Or," he says quietly, after a moment of silence, "is it because I'm your boy... and you don't know how to shake me?"

Blade by blade, Louis rips the grass from the footpath and lets the pieces flutter away in the wind. "The later," he says, avoiding Harry's gaze. "Almost definitely the later."

"Okay," Harry nods. He takes another deep breath, hands shaking under his elbows. "Was it really one-sided?" he asks then, because he needs to know. "When we decided to break up, were you really just going along with everything I said because you thought it was what I truly wanted?"

It's Louis' turn to sigh now as he dusts some dirt off of Harry's boot. "No, it wasn't one-sided," he says slowly. "I didn't mean what I said after Niall's. I know it was just as hard for you as it was for me. You weren't being a martyr. You were right. We were miserable, we were drowning, and I'd just..."

He cuts himself off, settles his hands atop his ankles, shakes his head.

"You just what?" Harry asks, breath coming short again.

"It doesn't matter now."

"It might."

"Harry," Louis sighs, tongue darting out to lick his lips. Even slouched over on the floor with a drop of sweat rolling down the side of his forehead, the sight of him still has Harry's heart feeling like it's ready to combust.

"Can we please talk about this later?" he asks.

He must be able to see the hesitation that falls upon Harry's face, the worry that there might not _be_ a later, because he frowns, his eyes earnest and so, so blue, and places both his hands on Harry's knees, squeezing gently.

"I promise we'll talk later," he says, and Harry believes him, has no other choice. "I promise. It's just, I can hear the party starting, and Liam's probably getting worried about us, and this talk deserves my full attention. But I promise."

Harry nods, staring down at Louis fingers, spread out across his knees. "Later," he agrees quietly. "When we're both too drunk to know any better."

"Of course," Louis says. He uses Harry's knees to clamber up from his spot on the floor, then offers Harry a hand to pull him to his feet. "Save a dance for me?"

Harry shudders, some of the aftershocks of his breakdown making their way up his spine. He takes a steadying breath and lets it out in a shaky laugh, eyes still stinging from all of the tears.

"Yeah," he murmurs, dropping his eyes to their feet. "Always."

\---

They drink, as promised. As soon as the reception starts, Louis grabs two glasses of champagne off the nearest tray and deposits them both in Harry's hands before stealing two more for himself like they're teenagers sneaking alcohol from their parents' stashes again. They wait for the first toast, suck down their first glasses, then sip from their second flutes like respectable adults.

The bubbles warm Harry's throat. The alcohol warms his veins. There's still that bittersweet feeling surrounding everything, but it's manageable now. It's okay. He's heard Louis' apology, he knows Louis had never meant any of what he'd said after Niall's, he knows that _Louis knows_ that their breakup had been for all of the right reasons. They weren't happy, and Louis knows. It had never been to get rid of him. It had never been a lie, an easy way out, a quick excuse to end things.

And that eases the weight from Harry's chest immensely.

Of course, there's still that one question that feels unanswered. The path behind them lies thick with stories, with promises, years of falling in love, just falling and falling, and giving everything they'd had until barely anything had remained, just bleeding hearts, raw and open, the only things left behind.

For the past few weeks, there hasn't been a path. Harry doesn't know which direction they've been heading in, but he has an inkling. He thinks he knows what he wants now, even if it's foolish and dangerous and could possibly cause even more damage further down the line. He thinks it could be worth it, that the fight this time around could be worth enduring. He's just worried that Louis won't want to fight for the same thing.

_We were miserable, we were drowning, and I'd just..._

He'd just let Harry split them apart. He'd just gone with it, without putting up an argument, without trying to make any changes, without knowing how it would end.

He could do the same now. He could let this be the end and save them both the trouble. He could pretend that the past month had never happened and they could keep trying to move on, even if it's hard, even if they're both still so stuck on each other, stuck on the past.

It still feels dangerous, loving Louis. It still feels confusing. It still scares him enough to send him running back to the bar for yet another round of drinks.

Because he knows how it feels to lose love.

And he's terrified of having to feel that again.

"Want to slow down, there?" Louis asks, watching him set their fresh mojitos on the table, one for each of them, even Liam.

Harry gulps down a few sips of his water - he has to stay hydrated, of course - before drinking from his new glass.

"I think..." he starts, tapping a long finger against his chin, "I'd rather not."

"You'd rather not?" Louis asks with an amused smirk. His eyes keep twinkling with the fairy lights. His mouth is wet where his tongue darts out to lick his lips.

He's been keeping a safe distance between them for the most part, letting Harry cool down, letting him breathe while he's slipped from table to table and chatted away with industry friends. It's working, for the most part, but it's also added to the uncertainty hanging over them.

"It's easier being around you when I'm drunk."

The words just tumble out of his mouth before he can stop them. Louis blinks, his drink halfway to his lips, but he doesn't respond. They're interrupted before he can.

"That's a nice look you've got going on, love," Katie says as she spills into the empty seat at the table behind them, gesturing down at Harry's wide-open top. "Can almost see your nipples, there."

"They just want to be a part of the celebration," Dan teases as he sits down beside her, kicking the leg of Louis' chair with his expensive shoes until Louis twists around to give them his full attention.

He and Harry had both said their congratulations earlier. Harry had made sure to do so before he'd had too much to drink.

"Can we help you?" Louis asks, narrowing his eyes at the happily married couple.

Katie flips him off. Dan tries valiantly to cover her hands before any of their relatives can see. Harry takes another sip of his drink, his face still warm with embarrassment at his little confession.

"We just wanted to thank you," Dan says as he pins his wife's hands to her lap, a little drunk, a lot in love. "If it weren't for you two and your Halloween party three years ago, we never would have met each other. We wouldn't be here today."

"It's not like we set you up or anything," Louis says. "You both did all the hard work on your own."

"But we couldn't have started without you," Katie insists. She squeezes Harry's arm where it's draped over his chair, her cheeks rosy from the celebrations, her eyes bright and unusually earnest. "You alright?" she asks. "Having fun?"

"Of course," Harry says with a small smile as he tips his glass in her direction. He doesn't mention anything about his panic attack. He doesn't need her worrying about him.

"Did you enjoy the cake?"

"I did."

"Would you like to join me on the dance floor?"

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Harry laughs quietly. The room's spinning just a bit, lights and colors sort of swirling together. It had been a bad enough time trying to maneuver his way to the bar - he doesn't think he can handle a dance at the moment.

Louis nudges his elbow.

"Come on, Styles," he says softly. "Let me see some of your moves."

Harry shakes his head. "I haven't got any moves."

"You promised me a dance," Louis reminds him.

"Yeah, _with_ you," Harry corrects. "Not for your entertainment."

"Alright, then let's go."

He grabs Harry's hand and starts tugging him out of his chair before Harry can even think to protest. The music slows, the world tilts, his fingers intertwine with Louis', and suddenly he's winding his way through empty chairs to the edge of the dance floor.

He's vaguely aware of Katie and Dan following them, a giant smirk twisting Katie's face as she revels in the idea of him and Louis dancing together. He's aware that he's probably a bit more drunk than he'd thought. He's aware, through the fog in his brain and the frantic beat of his heart, that Louis turns to face him, that their fingers stay locked and Louis' other hand somehow ends up on his shoulder, that his own free hand finds the small of Louis' back, that they're standing very, very close when the next song begins. Other than that, he's not much aware of anything at all.

"So, the chocolate covered strawberries were good," Louis muses quietly, trying to ease some of the tension.

Harry lets out an absurd, little laugh, ducks his head and pulls Louis against him with his one arm.

"Come on," he murmurs, swaying them ever so slightly. "You said you wanted to dance."

"I did," Louis nods.

"Then dance with me."

It might be their last chance. It might be their last little moment like this. This close. With this much of their guard down.

Harry's glad he's a little drunk for it. He's not sure he could have handled having Louis in his arms - warm, pliant, smelling like citrus, like red wine, like cigarette smoke - if he were any sort of sober.

They're quiet as the music plays, as the party continues to move, to exist around them, drowning them out. Harry holds Louis close, their hands linked, their feet moving together as they rock from side to side and turn on the spot. It's impossible not to feel the heat of Louis' body so close to his own. It's impossible not to want to close his eyes and imagine a different ending for them, a better ending, an ending where they love each other, where that's enough, where that's all that matters, that's all they ever need.

He starts humming along to the familiar melody as the second chorus starts in again. Louis' lips curve up into the sweetest, saddest smile, his eyes a dark blue under the low light before he drops them to Harry's chest, to the gap remaining between them.

"I'm sorry," he whispers.

Harry sighs and rubs his thumb over a knob in Louis' spine. He takes the hand he's holding and brings it up around his own neck, let's go and wraps both of his arms around Louis' waist so they're closer, hanging off each other, bodies nearly flush.

"Me, too," he murmurs.

Louis tucks his face into his shoulder, and Harry presses his cheek against the side of his head, and he knows, he knows, he _knows_ he's going to be stuck loving this man in his arms for the rest of eternity. Whether Louis loves him the same way or not.

The song comes to a slow end as they sway together, neither of them saying a bloody thing, and Harry's heart aches with it. He doesn't want to let go, not without Louis promising that it's not the end, that they'll make it through this, that they'll be alright. He brushes his lips against Louis' hair. He holds him tight until the last note plays out.

Louis lifts his head slowly.

He doesn't say anything. He blinks, and Harry feels that electric pull in his chest grow to the point where it starts to hurt. Louis tightens his arms around the back of his neck, pulling him in as the next song starts up. And then their foreheads press together, and Harry's eyes flutter shut, his heart screaming where it's been locked up, broken for months. Their noses bump, Louis stops rocking them to the melody of the music, and it's terrifying. It's like the rest of the world has broken off, fallen into the dark abyss, left the two of them on this one shrinking patch of space at the corner of the dance floor, and it's terrifying.

It shouldn't be happening, Harry knows it won't end well, not before they talk. He tries to pull back, breath dusting Louis' lips, arms loosening around his waist, but as soon as Louis feels him start to leave, he tilts his head to the side, inhales softly, and seals their lips together.

It's barely anything, just a peck, their mouths closed and unmoving. But then it's more, another peck, slow and gentle, another, another, like Louis' testing the waters, like he's gauging Harry's reaction before he chooses to commit to it, but it's too late. They're already here and there's no taking it back.

It's Harry who parts his lips first. He licks over Louis' bottom lip, licks into his mouth, meets Louis' tongue as his head starts to drown with the thought of having him again like this. The last time they'd kissed, it had been the worst moment of Harry's life. Now he's choking on it, everything welling up inside of him, clogging his airways, making it impossible to breathe. His hands find Louis' waist again, clutching at his hips just to ground himself for a moment as Louis hums a soft moan into his mouth.

It's too much.

Harry pulls away with a quiet noise, eyes beating open to find Louis staring at his red lips, his cheeks flushed, eyelashes dark, mouth drawn in a tight line. He watches the entire column of Louis' throat move as he swallows thickly, jaw hard as steel.

"H," Louis croaks, closing his eyes again as their heads tip back together. "I think we should go for a walk."

Harry nudges Louis' cheek with his nose. He nods.

"Okay," he says, afraid he might kiss him again if he doesn't.

"Okay," Louis murmurs. "Come on. Let's get out of here."

\---

They can still hear the music playing down by the water, the final songs of the night drifting along the path around the pond. The stars, the moon, the scattered and dimly-lit lamps - they're the only eavesdroppers this far out from the party. They're alone, again, finally, both an alarming and alluring thought after the kiss they'd just shared. Harry wants this, wants to talk, wants to be alone with Louis, wants all of his attention fixated on him again, but he doesn't want this to end. He can't bear the thought of it, feels it suffocating him already and making it difficult for him to think straight.

"Lou," he murmurs, slowing to a stop when he can't go any further. He gently tugs on Louis' hand, and Louis slows with him, the two of them left standing at the edge of the pond with nothing left to hide behind. Louis meets his eyes, and Harry raises an eyebrow as if to say _go on_. Louis nods, just once.

"I'm a little drunk," he admits with a sad, small laugh, his eyes skating away to the black surface of the water. "Fair warning, I'm probably going to say a few stupid things."

He goes to pull his hand away, but Harry holds on a little tighter, doesn't let him go.

"That's okay," he whispers. He squeezes Louis' fingers, rubs his thumb over the back of his hand, the same way he'd always done when things got scary, when things got bad. He takes a step towards the banks of the rippling water and pulls Louis with him, squeezes his hand once more before taking a seat on the last strip of grass. Louis eases down beside him, their fingers unwinding, his arms wrapping around his knees where they're bent near his chest. He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly.

"I really, _really_ hate this," he says quietly, like he's trying to push an enormous weight off his chest.

Harry bites his lip, his hands trembling in the grass now that they have nothing to hold.

"Me, too," he agrees. He really, truly does.

"You're the love of my life, H," Louis admits. "How did we let this happen?"

"I don't know," Harry murmurs, "but it's all I ever think about. I haven't - I don't think I've thought of anything else since we broke up."

"Me neither," Louis sighs. His face is dark, hidden in the night's shadows, just the cut of his jaw visible when he turns his head. "I know we weren't happy," he says, voice rough, emotion caught in his throat. "I know it wasn't good. We were stressed, stretched too thin, we barely saw each other - but I know we _always_ loved each other. And I guess I'm just a little confused, thinking back on it all."

He turns to meet Harry's eyes, and Harry doesn't even need the light to be able to see the hurt in them, the open vulnerability, the seven months worth of self-doubt pouring out of them.

"What are you confused about?" he asks, almost afraid to hear the answer.

Louis stares back across the water.

"We were miserable and we were drowning," he says again, "but you never asked me to change. You never called me back from the studio. You never tried to get me to stay. _Never,_ H. And I just don't understand why. Why didn't you?"

"Because," Harry says, squeezing his eyes shut. He can feel the words he's had locked up in the deepest, darkest parts of his heart pressing on their barriers, trying to rip through whatever cage he'd subconsciously built around them. He can feel them, and they ache. They're burning with the truth.

"Because I wanted... I wanted you to _want_ to be with me. Not because I asked you to, not because I gave you an ultimatum. Just because you knew that's all you needed."

He lets the world spin a little as he opens his eyes. He doesn't look at Louis, can't bring himself to. He's not sure what he would even see there, whether it would just break the last piece of him left or not.

"I'm not blaming you," he adds, voice low. "I never blamed you for any of it. I could have tried harder to change things on my end, too. The psychology courses, a different job- It takes two people to build a relationship, Lou, and it takes two people to say when it's over."

"Is it over?" Louis asks, resting his chin on top of his knees. "Did we break up, or are we just taking a break?"

"Louis, if nothing's changed..."

"I'm still - I still love you. More than anything," Louis says softly. "That much will always be the true. But producing... It's just my job, H. Somewhere along the way, I started to think it was more than that. I started using it to fill all the cracks and gaps left in our relationship. But it was really you who always filled the gaps in my job."

"What do you mean?" Harry asks, brow furrowing.

"Producing isn't what I fell in love with," Louis tries to explain. "I really enjoy it and I couldn't think of a better job I'd rather have, but it was only ever worth anything when I had you on the couch behind me, asking for a listen, offering your suggestions, begging me to just add some bloody horns to the chorus because you were the expert, remember?

"That's how we fell in love," he continues. "There's always been a whole lot of your love in the studio, whether you were physically there or not. And when we broke up, it became abundantly clear just how little was left without you."

The distant song drifting down from the party comes to a quiet end, and suddenly Harry can hear the summer bugs chirping, the slight breeze rustling through the leaves on the trees around them, his own heart in his ears.

"We can't do this if we don't try to change anything," he murmurs into the night. "I'm not ready to leave you a second time."

"I know," Louis nods. "And I'm trying."

"The only reason we've seen so much of each other lately is because school's out of session," Harry reminds him. "In September, when it starts back up again, I don't want it to go back to the way it was before."

"It won't," Louis promises. "If you really want to be an art therapist, we can both work nights. If you're just doing it for a chance at having me back, then stay with the little ones, and I'll keep coming home in time for dinner."

"Even if you miss out on some massive opportunities?"

Louis tilts his head sideways onto his knees, just to peer over at him.

"Yeah," he says. "Even if it means Liam gets them instead."

Harry doesn't know what to say. He's exhausted, anxious about taking the chance, scared shitless of having to go through all of that pain again, falling apart again, having to say goodbye again, but he loves Louis. He always has, and knows in his heart that he always will. A love like that doesn't just go away if it gets ignored. A love like that is worth fighting for.

"You're the love of my life," he says, stealing Louis' line from earlier. "These past months have been complete and utter shit without you. I want to try. I want to fix everything that was wrong with us and make us whole again, but I'm terrified that it won't work. I'm terrified that I'll lose you again."

"You won't," Louis says quietly, sticking out a hand and reaching for Harry's fingers in the grass. "I won't let it happen. I want to be with you, H. Forever. I know what it's like being without you, and I can't do that."

"You promise me?" Harry asks, gripping Louis' fingers like a lifeline.

Louis nods and gently tugs until Harry gives in and scoots closer, their hands twisted up between them, Harry's head falling onto Louis' shoulder.

"I love you," Louis murmurs, his lips brushing the short ends of Harry's hair. "I want to be with you. I want to be a better boyfriend to you. I want to kiss you, support you, get through this with you, I want to marry you."

"Yeah?" Harry breathes.

Louis rubs the pad of his thumb over the empty stretch of Harry's finger, right where his engagement ring had sat for two long years.

"Yeah," he says softly. "Maybe not - not right away, not tomorrow, not the next month, but eventually. When we're ready."

"One step at a time," Harry agrees. They can't rush back into this. They need to take it slow, rebuild, heal, learn to love each other the right way this time. "I love you," he adds, because he doesn't know if he's said it yet in such basic, important terms.

Louis gently nudges his head with his shoulder.

"Can you pick your head up, baby?" he asks.

Harry smirks, nuzzles further into the thin fabric of his button up. "Why?"

"So I can kiss you," Louis answers. "Obviously."

Harry lifts his head, still a bit dizzy from drinking. He bites his bottom lip, tries not to grin so hard as he takes in as much of Louis' face as he can in the dark.

"I thought so," he nods, self-satisfied.

He doesn't wait for Louis to make a snarky comment or make the first move. He just goes for it, leans in, crushes their lips together in a way that still feels like second nature, even after all this time.

It's slow and deep, just the way Harry likes it. It's Louis taking charge, pressing him flat into the grass, hands roaming, rucking up expensive shirts, dipping into the places they're most curious to go. Harry's too tired for sex tonight, Louis too, but that doesn't stop either of them from enjoying the feel, the weight each other, the suspense.

They kiss until they can't breathe, until their lips are swollen, their jaws sore. They kiss until the ground starts digging into Harry's shoulders and Louis starts to worry about his back. They kiss until they've had enough, and even then, it's still _not enough,_ so they kiss until the music dies out and the wedding party ends and it's time to say goodnight.

Louis walks Harry back to the inn, back up the stairs, back to his room with his single bed and his clothes from the morning strewn haphazardly across the floor.

"Stay with me," Harry murmurs in the doorway, voice thick, nearly overcome by his need for sleep.

Louis kisses his cheekbone, right under his drooping eye. "Do you have enough room for me in that bed of yours?"

"Yes," Harry nods, pulling Louis inside so he can shut the door. "Don't want to be alone tonight."

"You won't be," Louis promises.

And even though the bed is smaller than the one Harry had grown up in, even though they're both a bit grimy from the party, from rolling around in the grass, from an exhausting day with no emotional break, they strip down to their pants and climb under the duvet together, the threat of morning hangovers looming over their tired heads. Harry refuses to be the little spoon, insists on falling asleep face-to-face, his arm over Louis' waist, the slight pressure of Louis' lips on his own the last thing he remembers before he's out for the night.

\---

Waking up feels more like falling into a dream than out of one.

He stretches, muscles stiff, joints achy, limbs a little heavier than usual as he lowers his arms from where they've ended up above his head in his sleep. He lets out a long, slow breath and rolls onto his side, rubbing at the corner of one eye, squinting through the soft morning light with the other.

Louis is there, squeezed on the edge of the bed, watching him gather his senses and come awake.

"Hi," Harry croaks, scooting closer and slipping his leg between Louis'. The duvet they fell asleep under is halfway to the floor, just a thin sheet left to cover their waists. Harry drags it back over their bare shoulders.

"How are you feeling?" Louis asks. His hand finds Harry's chest and settles over his heart. Harry holds it there, covers it with his own.

"Think m'alright" he murmurs, voice no more than a low, raspy rumble. "Was expecting worse."

"Me too," Louis nods, shifting a bit.

He's hard, Harry had felt it against his thigh when he'd first tangled their legs together. He can feel it now as Louis settles in closer.

"You good?" he asks, smirking into the pillow, ducking his head to hide the color creeping up his cheeks. He's got butterflies in his stomach. That's new.

"I snuck out to pee about half an hour ago," Louis sighs. "I can't get it to go down."

Harry chuckles quietly and moves his hand away from Louis', settles his fingertips low on Louis' stomach, just above the waistband of his briefs. Louis' muscles flutter.

"What time issit?" Harry asks, contemplative.

"Early. A little past eight," Louis answers. "I told Liam we'd leave around eleven."

Harry slips a finger under the elastic and stretches it away from Louis' warm skin. "I could help with this."

"I bet you could," Louis agrees. His eyelids shutter lazily, his eyes doing that sultry morning thing that's always gotten Harry's blood flowing.

He goes to drag the front of Louis' briefs down past his hard length, but Louis shakes his head, retracts his hips almost at once.

"Go brush your teeth first," he laughs quietly before Harry can question him. "I'm not kissing you with whiskey breath."

It's a fitting start to their first morning together again. With the sun rising through the curtains and the sheets wrapped around their waists, the path before them looks more defined than ever before. Harry kisses Louis anyway, just because he wants to, just because he can, and Louis kisses him back, nose scrunched, tongue held back in his mouth, because, well, because Harry's the love of his life. Despite the hangover, despite the morning breath, he always has been. He always will be.

\---

It's nearly eleven o'clock at night and there's not a single star in the sky.

The threat of a New Year's Eve snow storm hangs over their heads, clouds that rolled in a day ago, making it impossible to see anything but the vast darkness above them.

Harry drums his fingers along the curve of his glass, nothing but the ice left at the bottom, his rings clinking, rattling as he tries to steady himself along the edge of the balcony.

"You cold?" Louis asks. He takes the chilled glass from between Harry' hands and sets it on the wall. "Come here," he says, pulling Harry closer to the outdoor space heater and wrapping his arms tight around him.

It doesn't do much to stop the chills vibrating up his spine, but it is warmer.

"We should go soon," Harry suggests, letting out a breathy laugh when Louis starts pecking kisses along his jaw. "I want to take a little walk with you before midnight."

It's been a full year since the breakup, five months since they've started seeing each other again. It hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows, not like picking up where they'd left off. It's been bumpy, difficult at times, more of a challenge in the beginning than Harry could have imagined, but they're in a good place now. The sea has calmed, the breeze has died down, they've adjusted. It's different. A lot of it is different. But it's better, and Harry just has some things he wants to say and do before the night is over.

Louis releases him from his hold and grabs onto the front of his button-up.

"You just want to beat the traffic," he says, staring up at Harry, amusement twisting his face.

Harry laughs, shakes his head. "That's not it."

"You're worried about George?" Louis frowns.

"I'm always worried about George," Harry admits and drops a kiss to Louis' forehead. "He tried to swallow my earbuds when you brought him for dinner last week."

"He's just a puppy," Louis reminds him. "He's still learning the basics."

Harry raises an eyebrow.

"Does that mean he's going to stop sleeping on my side of your bed when I can't stay the night?" He's gotten so accustomed to finding curly, little dog hairs on his pillow every time he sleeps at Louis' house, almost five nights a week these days.

Louis flattens his hands over Harry's chest.

"Yeah," he says and gives Harry's nipples a pinch, "when you decide you want to move back in with me."

Harry rolls his eyes. It's an argument they've had several times since August, and Harry doesn't want to have it again, not tonight, not in the middle of this party, not before... well. Before.

"Let's get out of here," he says, grabbing Louis' hands off his chest and backing them towards the main party area.

"Don't forget our coats," Louis warns.

Harry doesn't think he could, even if he tried.

They end up on the street with their arms linked but their hands in their own pockets, neither of them smart enough to bring a pair of gloves. It's fucking cold, colder than the year before, the wind whipping through the streets, making Harry's eyes water, the tip of his nose bitten by the chill. He adjusts his scarf, a recent Christmas gift from Gemma, and checks Louis to make sure he's okay.

"C'mere," he mumbles into the soft fabric. He shuffles to a stop along the side of a building, Louis halting with him, their breaths clouding the air. Harry laughs, the sound of it muffled by his scarf. "Stop breathing," he says. "I can't see anything."

"Then you stop breathing too," Louis replies. "Why have we stopped? I need to keep moving or I'm going to turn into an ice lolly."

Harry refrains from making any _sucking_ jokes and carefully slides his hands from his pockets. He doesn't say anything as he fixes the fleece-lined collar of Louis' coat, unfolding it so that it covers more of his neck. He doesn't say anything as he links their arms again and continues leading Louis down the street, ambling past the other stragglers who haven't found a place for the countdown yet.

"Are we going anywhere in particular?" Louis asks.

Harry shrugs and turns them down a side street. "Just in, like, the general direction of your house."

"Trying to save on the taxi fare?"

"Something like that," Harry laughs and glances ahead. There's an empty bench along the outskirts of a small park. He pulls Louis towards it, footsteps crunching over the remnants of unshoveled snow, still there from Boxing Day.

He doesn't even think twice about it, the bench far enough removed from the pavement and all of the passersby. He just drops onto the cold wood and flattens himself out on his back, knees bent slightly, feet hanging just over the opposite end, eyes blinking up at the empty sky.

Louis stares at him like he's gone insane.

"What?" Harry squawks, grinning over at him. "Come have a cuddle."

He opens his arms and pats his chest, spreads his knees so Louis can lie down between them.

"You've lost it," Louis laughs and shakes his head. "You can't just lay down wherever you please and expect me to give you a fucking cuddle. Are you feeling okay? Are you ill?"

"No, come here," Harry insists, still grinning. "Let me keep you warm for a bit."

Louis hesitates, glancing back and forth down the street, clearly skeptical, before he sighs and gives in, climbing on top of Harry and bracing himself over his chest. His elbows dig in a bit, but it's nothing Harry really minds.

"Better?" Louis asks.

Harry lowers his scarf from around his mouth.

"Much," he nods and cranes his neck to capture Louis' lips.

Louis chuckles, his entire body shaking with it. "Hi, baby."

"Hi, best friend, boyfriend, love of my life," Harry answers.

"You're being odd tonight," Louis remarks, resting his chin over Harry's sternum. "Should I be worried?"

"No," Harry promises, "I'm okay."

"Are you sure? You seem a little nervous."

"I'm okay, Lou."

"Positive?" Louis tries again. "Because I'm having these flashbacks right now, and they're all of you breaking up with me on New Year's Eve."

He's teasing, Harry knows he is, but he can still hear that smidgen of doubt behind it all. He can still hear the questions, the uncertainty, the residual suspicion that might never go away.

"Louis," he says calmly, or at least as calmly as he can manage with the nerves boiling under his skin. Yeah, he's nervous, but that doesn't mean he's not okay.

"You're not breaking up with me?" Louis asks.

Harry shakes his head, wraps his arms around Louis, kisses him again on the mouth and lets his eyes fall shut. He takes a deep breath and opens them.

"I love you," he says slowly, his gaze meeting Louis' eyes, just inches from his own and swimming with adoration. "I've loved you since you were twenty years old, and you snuck me into the uni studio just for our first kiss."

"Long time, then," Louis nods, tipping his head forwards to kiss over Harry's chest.

"Yeah," Harry agrees quietly, but he isn't quite finished. "I have loved you," he continues, "since you took me home for Christmas that year, and made me feel like I was a part of your family."

Louis doesn't say anything, just offers him a sweet, sad smile and lets him go on.

"I've loved you," Harry says, and he can't help the bit of laughter that comes with this, "since you kicked that football right at my face and _I_ was the one who had to console you for feeling so awful about it."

"Hey," Louis says softly, his voice growing thin. "Be nice."

Harry just grins and places another gentle kiss on his bowed lips.

"I've loved you, Louis Tomlinson," he says, "since we rented our first flat, since you had your first song played on the radio, since I got my first job, since you proposed to me with my favorite board game, since things got tough, since we broke each other's hearts, since we pieced them back together, since you told me you loved me just this morning."

He takes a quick breath to remember where he'd been going with all of this, but he already knows, has known for a while now, and the silence, the searching look, the way Louis' heart is beating hard enough that Harry can feel it through four layers of clothing, tells him Louis might just know where he's going with all of it, too.

"A year ago," he says, voice shaking just a little, "we were in a really terrible place. We didn't know how to fix it, we didn't think we ever would, but we did and we never stopped loving each other, and I'm - I'm so much happier now, Lou, than I have ever been in my entire life."

"Me too," Louis whispers, staring back into his eyes, cheeks pink, nose turning red from the cold.

Harry reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out the tiny box he'd been carrying around all night. He can see Louis fighting a knowing smirk, corners of his mouth twitching, eyes crinkling, his nose scrunching. Harry could kiss all of him.

"Not so easy when you're on the other end of it, is it?" Louis teases, pushing slowly off of Harry's chest and kneeling between his legs.

Harry gets up on his elbows, box in hand, and just grins at him, his beautiful, talented, sweet, snarky _Louis,_ the love of his life, his universe, his boy. He stays like that until his cheeks sting from the blowing breeze, until he's painted a picture of it in his memory, until Louis leans forward and grabs the front of his coat, pulls him into a seated position, so bloody impatient.

"Get on with it," he says, but he's smiling, eyes twinkling with the light of all the stars hidden behind the clouds.

Harry clears his throat, hands shaking as he slides off the bench and gets down on one knee. It really is a lot easier when he's the one being proposed to, but it's not Louis that scares him, not the prospect of him saying _no._ He's not even scared. The nerves are good nerves, excited nerves, the nerves that come with the nice kind of butterflies. They have a long future together, have always had it planned, and he's just looking forward to meeting it for once.

"Louis William Tomlinson," he starts, peering up at Louis, trying not to let his emotions get the best of him. "My best friend, my boyfriend, the love of my life. I know we already went through this three years ago, but I thought I'd go ahead this time and ask you myself - if the offer still stands, if you're still willing to have me, will you do me the great honor of marrying me?"

He opens the box with trembling fingers and shows off the ring inside, just a simple band, much like the one Louis had proposed to him with, nothing sparkling or intricate, exactly how Louis prefers these things.

He doesn't answer right away, but that's okay, Harry gets it. He thumbs at some of the moisture brewing along his lower lash line, shakes his head with an embarrassingly choked laugh, and hears Louis echo it with his own.

"Jesus, Harry," he coughs, and there are tears in his eyes too. Tears and oceans and galaxies, and Harry is so, so fucking in love, even nine years into their relationship.

"Is that a yes?" he asks with a shaky, watery chuckle.

Louis grabs the box from his outstretched hand and slips the ring onto his fourth finger.

"Of course it's a yes, you nutter," he says and falls to his knees in front of Harry, practically flattens him to the pavement, kisses him hard on the mouth like he's never kissed him before.

Around them, the city erupts in a deluge of cheers. Fireworks shoot off into the night's sky, noise-makers sound from the windows, from doorways, drivers passing by press rhythmically on their horns. Harry smiles into the kiss, his heart bursting, his hands tangled in Louis' hair, holding the collar of his coat up around the back of his neck, keeping him warm.

It's another year, he thinks, and they're going to be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> [tumblr.](http://anylessreal.tumblr.com)
> 
> [fic post.](http://anylessreal.tumblr.com/post/156732738770/the-end-should-be-a-good-one-bananasandboots)


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